


A Matter of Time

by Beardysteve, Paint_Stained_Heart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Added media, Alternate Universe, Angst, Atypical chronology more like?, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Catholic!Steve, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hydra, I worked really hard on the timeline you guys, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, MCU timeline compliant, Non-Chronological, POV Alternating, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, Panic Attacks, Period-Typical Homophobia, Photographer!Bucky, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protectiveness, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Text messaging, The rest is mostly compliant?, Wakanda, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, World War II, fairly mild HTP, jewish!bucky, outside pov, period typical names for genitalia lol, suicidal ideation rears its ugly head in a few chapters, which will be individually tagged as well, ~ooooh~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-24 02:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 83,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beardysteve/pseuds/Beardysteve, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paint_Stained_Heart/pseuds/Paint_Stained_Heart
Summary: Steve Rogers crosses the Atlantic rounding off at about ninety-five pounds of pure adrenaline, which is precisely the opposite of what Bucky Barnes ever wanted for him.Steve's story goes forwards. Bucky's story goes backwards. Perhaps they'll find a way to meet each other halfway.OR: If anyone had the fucking courtesy to ask Bucky Barnes what he thought of all this.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> First, a shoutout to the mods who have, for the second year in a row, absolutely rocked my world with their kindness, patience, enthusiasm, and sheer coordination.
> 
> Next, a *HUGE* shoutout to the talented but also PURE, BEAUTIFUL HUMAN I was lucky enough to get paired with for this collab. [Beardysteve](http://beardysteve.tumblr.com) created the most gorgeous piece for this RBB, and I can only hope that I did it justice. I am so grateful for our boba hangs, friendship, and general squealing.
> 
> The AU chronology was loosely inspired by The Last Five Years. I wanted to tell their stories in a unique chronological format because time must be so utterly different for these guys. Steve is always being propelled forward, into battle, into the future, into the next thing he has to tackle. Bucky, on the other hand, is working backward, trying to find and remember himself. So prepare yourself for alternating chapters and crisscrossing timelines. 
> 
> ALSO: I unapologetically used google translate for the various languages that appear in this story. If there's a translation error, or any other issues for that matter, I am happy to correct it and always ready to be educated.
> 
> Special thanks to my cheerleader/beta, withinmelove, and especially to my other lovely beta, [rivertam](https://rivertam-art.tumblr.com/), who is responsible for every historical accuracy in this piece and who was so patient, responsive, and thorough.
> 
> Okay, hope I haven't scared you all away yet. Enjoy.
> 
>  [fic masterpost](http://beardysteve.tumblr.com/post/174949196773/a-matter-of-time-a-collab-for-the-capreversebb)
> 
> [high res art on imgur](https://imgur.com/4hdnIu0)

**Buzzfeed: Top Seven Most Baffling Break-Ins In History**

  1. **Watergate.** ‘Nuf said.  

  2. **Like the Milgram Experiment, but worse.** Although Watergate might be tough to follow, let’s not forget about the Boston Museum Art Heist at the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Not only was more than $300 million (you heard that right – _m i l l i o n_ ) worth of art stolen, but the heist might even have been based off the film, _The Town._ These guys straight up dressed as police officers, locked the security guards in the basement without any visible weapons, and casually waltzed out of there with a Rembrandt (internal screaming!!!!).  

  3. **Dun-un, Dun-un, Dun-un-dun-un-dun-un-dun-un-dun-unnnnnn.** This one’s pretty fun. In 2009, four men known as the Pink Panthers gang (we know you’re singing the theme song, too, don’t lie) stormed Harry Winston’s exclusive Parisian jewellery store dressed as women, smashing display cases and escaping with £85 million in diamonds!  

  4. **The man with the plan.** Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America, or as we at Buzzfeed like to call him, Captain Tight-Shirts, pulled off quite a heist in 2014 when he broke into the Smithsonian to steal back his old red-white-and-blue Nazi-fighting getup! *swoon*  

  5. **Let her eat diamonds!** There’s _hope_ yet. Just kidding. Because on September 11, 1792 (we know, we really dug back in the archives for this one, but it’s just too glamorous not to!) while French King Louis XVI and his family were imprisoned at the beginnings of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror (somehow we don’t remember that bit in _Les Mis_ ), a gang of thieves broke into the Hôtel du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne and stole the Crown Jewels over not one, not two, but _five days_. You’d think they’d hurry or something. What was once the treasured French Blue diamond was cut down into what later became known as the Hope Diamond, which is just a tragedy. Marie Antoinette is rolling in her grave as we speak.  

  6. **We get it, you dynamite.** By far the most iconic heist of the Old West was pulled off by the most Old-Western-sounding group you could possibly imagine: Butch Cassidy’s “Hole in the Wall Gang.” They robbed an entire Union Pacific train when two gang members dressed up as signalmen stopped the train in the middle of Wyoming (your first question should be: Wyoming?) where the gang dynamited the railcar holding the strong box, dynamited the tracks to stop any pursuit, and then dynamited the strong box itself.  

  7. **Smithsonian 2.0**. Okay, we try not to have any repeats on our lists (really, we do) but this one is just too good to pass up. Another mysterious break-in at the Smithsonian revealed _another_ theft, two years later, from the Captain America Exhibit (which, if you haven’t gone, what are you even doing?). The best part about this one is that whoever the thief is left everything _very_ intact save for smashing one display case and making off with one tiny, baseball-card sized photograph of a very disgruntled-looking pre-serum Captain Rogers. You guys. He’s. So. Little. But this one’s unsolved, so the question remains: was it Steve again, coming back for the treasured historical artifacts that he just calls “my stuff?” Could it be the Winter Soldier? Or maybe it’s just some basement-dwelling Captain America fan adding to his action figure collection. The world may never know.



 

**[WHiH World News]**

**Another break-in at the Smithsonian’s Captain America Exhibit**

July 5, 2017

 **_Christine:_ ** _This just in. The Captain America Exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum was just breached for the second time in as many years. This comes as a huge surprise to many in the intelligence community, seeing how the museum installed heightened Steranko Security System after Steve Rogers himself walked away with his old 1945 star-spangled uniform in 2014, taken right off the mannequin and in front of security cameras._

 **_Bill:_ ** _Many speculate that it could be Rogers again. However, security footage from the night of the breach appears to be missing, and traces of the thief have yet to be found. Police are continuing with an investigation. If it_ was _the former-captain-turned-fugitive, the move was rather bold, considering he’s topping the FBI-most wanted list. Not exactly the charts you want to be topping these days, eh, Christine?_

 **_Christine:_ ** _You’re right, Bill. But the funny thing was that everything remained in place and untouched except for the shattered glass of a single display case full of photographs of Captain Rogers and his Howling Commandos during the war. The only photograph missing from the collection, however, is a small, torn image of Captain Rogers before Project Rebirth, looking small and almost unrecognizable to any who know him today. The photographer was James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th, now known more famously as the international terrorist, the Winter Soldier._

_**Bill:** Gives both of them pretty good motives for wanting the picture, don’t you think?_

_**Christine:** I don’t know, Bill. It seems the both of them have been laying low ever since Captain America and Iron Man went head to head earlier this year in Flughafen Leipzig-Halle, Germany. Besides, if I either of them turned up on U.S. soil, they’d be detained on the spot by any means necessary. It really doesn’t narrow the suspect list, though._

**_Bill:_ ** _The most confusing part? The thief left a one hundred dollar bill on the damaged display._

 ** _Christine:_ ** _Museum and police refuse to comment. Here’s Wendy with the evening’s weather forecast._

****  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were wondering, all these heists are TRUE STORIES (I mean except for Steve's, we can only wish). People are wild, y'all.


	2. The End

_White Wolf  
_ September 3, 2017

Bucky ran his hand over it for the millionth time. The paper’d gone soft, partly due to the fact that it was an original from 1945, but mostly due to the fact that he’d hardly been able to set it down. It was a beautiful photograph – square and sepia-toned, revealing both the grit and give of war. And it was Steve, unapologetically Steve.

No bigger than a playing card, the photo fit neatly into Bucky’s palm. In the photo, Steve was small, the way Bucky remembered him best, still scuffed up from his reckless one-man suicide mission after the 107th was captured at Azzano. He’d grown a full beard, which was pretty fucking impressive for someone who could barely make it up three flights of stairs without stopping to catch his breath. Bucky couldn’t help pressing the pads of his fingertips to the scars on picture-Steve’s face, especially the one so dangerously close to his eye. _You alright, Steve?_ Steve’d come down with a bad fever right after the photo was taken, if he remembered correctly. Seventy years had passed since that photograph was taken – he _knew_ Steve was okay, how their story ended – but it didn’t stop the way his breath hitched every time he saw those scars on Steve’s face. Even in a photograph. There was something about Steve Rogers that turned a switch on in Bucky: protect. Protect with everything you have.

It was Steve’s eyes that really did it for him, though; photograph-Steve looked like he wanted to punch something about as much as he needed a hug. A damn cigarette lulled between his split lips because he’d take the bad lungs over anyone doubting he was strong enough to fight. Bucky knew he was the one who had taken this photograph – his looping handwriting dating the photo on the back in hardly-there pencil was evidence of that. So he knew he had been there there. In that moment. With Steve. But for the life of him he couldn’t remember if he ever gave Steve Rogers that damn hug.

In a past life, he’d been a photographer, and a damn good one. That was something Steve liked to tell him these days. _“You had a way of capturing people. Their whole personality in one shot. It was a gift, Buck.”_ He had to take Steve’s word for it. Apparently, most of his negatives rotted under the floorboards of their old Brooklyn digs. Steve said he’d gone back for them when he woke up, but the building was gone along with whatever they had once carved into the wood and the things they’d left behind.

With a centering breath, Bucky replaced the photograph into the special sleeve Shuri had designed for him to preserve the thing, which sealed with a quiet mechanic whir, before placing it underneath his pillow where he kept it for safekeeping. Otherwise, the children would want to play with it. It was part of the small collection of things he owned now. The photograph of his favorite asshole. A white stone given to him by a little boy in the village. A blue hair ribbon.

He stepped out into the sunlight, then, emerging barefoot and scaring a flock of birds – unfamiliar, Wakandan birds of all colors and sizes, nothing like the pigeons he remembered. He’d kill you if you told anyone, but he folded himself in half and then walked his hands forward into downward-facing dog to begin his morning. Meditation he found difficult – his mind wasn’t exactly the quiet type anymore – but he found if he could concentrate on yoga, time would pass of its own accord and he could go hours without thinking up something horrifying.

Today was a visiting day. He was getting more and more of those – rewards for being poked with needles, or enduring another trigger reduction session, or simply positive self talk. Making it all the way through a therapy session.

He trusted the system because it was rewards-only. No punishment. Not ever.

A flat stone was curled in his hand, ripe for the skipping, when he heard the familiar crunch of combat boots on gravel behind him. He turned and jogged over, because after seventy-some years of waiting, a man learned that there was no point trying to hide his eagerness. A little bell was going off in his head. _Steve’s here, Steve’s here._

And then he was enveloped in his favorite pair of arms.

“Hey, you,” Steve said around a kiss, peppering Bucky in them, cheeks and chin and nose and eyes.

“Mornin’,” Bucky replied, voice a little hoarse from disuse. “You’re early.”

“Couldn’t wait,” Steve said with a shrug, releasing Bucky except for his hand, which he now gripped tightly and swung between them.

“I like the beard,” Bucky commented, admiring the new growth. “The whole on-the-lam disheveled vigilante thing works on you.” He knocked their shoulders together, and they started to walk.

“Who said anything about being a vigilante?” Steve said in surprise, the skin crinkling around his eyes, which were blue as the day they met.

“You’re in your stealth suit.”

“And?”

“There’s blood on it.”

“And?”

“You didn’t sign the Sokovia Accords and started working lowkey for the Wakandan government as a refugee-slash-fugitive.”

Steve paused a while. “Okay, you got me.”

“Always do.”

At that, Steve tickled his sides, and Bucky kicked at him without force, and they rolled around in the grass for a few minutes, kicking up dust until they were both panting, the ghosts of smiles on their faces as they settled down. Steve managed to roll himself on top of Bucky and looked down at him, hands folded neatly on Bucky’s rising and falling chest, just watching him playfully.

“This is the most free we’ve ever been,” Steve told him, tilting his head thoughtfully, like the thought had only just occurred to him. That was something Bucky loved about him – Steve almost never had a filter, much as others might want him to. He said what was on his mind, and he told the truth. Maybe because he was a terrible liar, but hey, it was something.

“I thought America was the Land of the Free,” Bucky countered from under Steve’s weight, ignoring the quiet buzz of lost feeling in his feet.

“I thought it was,” Steve said, a little more serious now. “But out here, no one around, just you and me and the breeze–”

“And Shuri’s cameras,” Bucky interrupted.

“–and Shuri’s cameras,” Steve conceded, giving Bucky a look for killing the mood. “I feel like we get to just be us.” One at a time, Steve laced his fingers between Bucky’s and pinned first his right, then his shiny left hand over his head and kissed him deeply, like they had all the time in the world.


	3. Steve Rogers and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

_Steve_  
June 14, 1943

 

Steve Rogers was having a terrible morning. Well, an _especially_ terrible morning. Things hadn’t been easy in a long while, and he’d piled up terrible mornings like dirty laundry. But this particular morning was testing his nerve.

He charged through Brooklyn like a bull, skinny elbows pushing through the crowd indiscriminately, through mothers with baby carriages and men in tweed suits, past newsboys who recognized him and screamed their usual taunts in his direction. Only a month ago he’d been the oldest newsie for _The Sun_ , not something to be proud of, but he got fired real quick when Mr. Boim found out it was Steve who clocked his son in Prospect Park.

What? The guy had it coming.

So there were no papers under his arm as he milled about in the early morning – no, he was running errands. One errand, really. Bucky shipped out early the next morning, and even though he’d said he had plans for them this evening, Steve wanted to do something special. The guy was just about the only family he had left.

The two of them didn’t have two nickels to rub together, that was for sure, but Steve swallowed his pride (with a hint of gin to make it go down smoother) and shined shoes the last four Mondays so he could get Bucky something nice. Of course, the whole thing had made him mad ( _“These guys make more money in a week than I’ll make my whole damned life, and they can’t spare me a tip? Don’t they see me shining their loafers barefoot!”_ ) and he had to close down early on the third Monday ‘cause his nose was dripping blood all down people’s shoes. But he had made a buck-fifty, and now he could spend it on something that mattered.

He passed the art supply shop briskly – there wasn’t anything in the window display that he hadn’t already ogled – past the pharmacy that already had way too much of his (and Bucky’s, to his chagrin) money, and into the grocer.

Steve quickly found what he was looking for and grabbed the three biggest Florida oranges on the shelf. He tried to imagine it: Florida. Palm trees and dolphins, sunshine and lush green as far as the eye could see. But the honks and shouts and smell of market fish pulled him out of his reverie and back to the mean streets of Manhattan. As he handed over the change, he waved off the thought that this could be a _week’s_ worth of rice and beans. Maybe two if he stretched it out and skipped lunches.

No. He shouldn’t think like that. These oranges were damn worth it for the smile they’d put on Bucky’s face. But the Depression was still so fresh, it was hard _not_ to think like that – like every penny could be your last, like any day the work might stop coming.

Besides, the work for Steve was hardly there at all. He was commissioned for political cartoons and adverts from a few local papers (except _The Sun_ ) from time to time. A few of his mother’s friends worried about him and charitably asked him to paint portraits or paintings that they probably didn’t really need. Shoe shining was working out for him – he liked making his own schedule – but that was mostly for younger boys. He might be small, but even Steve had outgrown _some_ things.

He knew Bucky was worried about him. Not that Bucky would ever admit he was worried about him, but it showed in the little things. One day, a second bottle of aspirin appeared next to the first in the bathroom cabinet, even though they normally waited ‘til it was long empty to re-supply. Then there was the stockpile of rubbing alcohol that magicked itself into the medicine cabinet, and a re-stocked icebox the week after. Steve was humbled to find a brand new flannel blanket appear on his bed one afternoon, even though it was still sticky summer in New York.

When an entire bag of sugar – a luxury Steve hadn’t seen in his own kitchen since his ma baked his 10th birthday cake – appeared on the counter, Steve tried to confront him.

“Quit spendin’ all your money on me, Buck. I’m gonna be fine. I mean, the sugar? Really? You and I both know we can’t afford that.”

But Bucky had just shrugged and smiled, evasive. “Life can be sweet sometimes, Stevie. Let it be sweet.” He wouldn’t look him in the eye, though, like he was embarrassed or somethin’. Maybe of coming into a little play-money, maybe of doing something kind for Steve.

Suddenly the three oranges in Steve’s grocery bag seemed insufficient. How do you repay a fella for taking care of you his whole life?

Of course, Steve knew the answer: you fight for him. You fight like hell for him. And Steve wanted to, more than anything. The problem was that they wouldn’t let him. He had a stack of rejections now, all hidden under the floorboards so Bucky wouldn’t see, but of course he knew. How could he not? Steve, leaving on ambiguous ‘errands’ with a skip in his step, returning at the end of the day with a frown and a gnarly temper and more often than not a split lip. Steve was used to being unwanted, but it was a whole new kind of rejection to not even be allowed to die for something. There was a war on, an important one, a cause Steve believed in down to his core, and he couldn’t even make himself _disposable_.

Bucky enlisted, of course. Maybe because it was the right thing to do, maybe to make his dad proud, maybe because there was nothing else to do these days. Steve didn’t ask; Bucky didn’t offer. It slept in their room together with them until Bucky went off to Basic, and now it was back, breathing down their necks – that Bucky was going somewhere Steve could never follow.

He sighed. Three oranges, a careful sketch of Bucky’s entire family he’d worked on the whole six weeks Bucky was gone, and a hastily-drawn self portrait when Steve decided last minute that he couldn’t bear the thought of Bucky forgetting what his face looked like.

Hey, it was cheaper than a photograph, even if their mirror was broken in enough places to make it hard to see his own face and get his nose just right.

These were all Steve had to give his best friend the day before he shipped out to war. He glared at passersby like it was somehow their fault.

 

***

 

Steve barged into their apartment, loud and obnoxious in the way that small people do to be seen, still panting and slick with sweat. The stairs did him in every damn time. The grocery bag of oranges thunked on the counter, and then he had to put both hands flat on the countertop, trying desperately to catch his breath as a wicked cough wracked his lungs. He beat his own chest with a skinny fist to unclog the airways, but it did no use.

“Mercy,” Bucky cursed, coming out of the bedroom in just his undershirt, briefs, and socks with sleep still in his eyes, like Steve’s cough was his cue to reappear. And really, where was the lie. “Want me to, y’know?” he asked.

Bucky always asked first.

Steve couldn’t answer but nodded desperately, tears streaming down his face from the coughing. Bucky clapped Steve on the back a few times to encourage his lungs to work. It helped, sort of. Bucky filled a glass of water from the tap and handed it to him.

“Allergies bad today?” Bucky finally asked. His voice was cool, but Steve could sense the looming fear-cloaked-in-rage behind the nonchalance. Bucky _hated_ seeing him sick.

“‘m fine,” Steve said between coughs, which were slowing now.

“Right. Wish the landlord would fix the damn elevator of these godforsaken tenements, though.”

“You know all the money’s goin’ to the war,” Steve pointed out. It was all he could talk about these days, and if he watched closely, he would swear that it was getting on Bucky’s nerves, like it was something he very much did not want to talk about.

“Don’t mean I have to like it,” Bucky said, eyebrows raised. He crossed his arms.

“Careful, Buck. Those war bonds are about to be your rations.”

Bucky waved his hand and changed the subject, spotting the literal fruits of Steve’s labors. “Ohhhh, been busy this morning, punk?” he asked, eyeing the brown paper bag on the counter. He’d never admit it, but Steve knew he loved surprises. And presents, for that matter. And the fact that Steve knew him best of all.

“Was gonna save ‘em for tonight…” Steve started, but Bucky was already pulling oranges from the bag, his clean-shaven face split into a grin, all teeth. The easiest smile in the world.

“Really?”

“Really.” Even Steve had to laugh at the childlike giddiness, so off-putting on a man whose next move was to put on a military uniform and start gunning down Nazis. But by the time Steve had even reached this conclusion, Bucky’d torn the peel off the fruit in one graceful motion and was handing Steve a slice.

Steve shook his head. “They’re for you,” he argued.

“No fun to enjoy the tang of life without you, dope. Take the damn slice.”

“No.”

“You’re a stubborn ass, you know that?” Bucky accused when Steve refused the orange slice he offered him.

“Who, me?” Steve asked, pointing at his scrawny chest.

Bucky chucked the orange peel at his head, which Steve dodged, waggling his eyebrows at Bucky in victory. In return, Bucky put an orange slice in his mouth to make it look like he had a big ol’ orange smile.

“How’s it taste?”

Bucky gave him a thumbs-up. When he got to the end of the orange, which was huge – what was _in_ Florida water, anyway? – Bucky swore he couldn’t finish it and simply insisted that he and Steve each take one of the two remaining slices. Steve caved because he could tell it would make Bucky happy, which was all he was trying to do, anyhow.

They tipped their slices together, and Bucky said, “ _L’Chaim_ ,” and they bit into their respective slices.

The sweet tang gushed on his tongue, juicy and potent; Bucky moaned happily into his own slice, relishing the burst of flavor, and Steve tried very hard not to notice that Bucky sounded the same way he did when he was tugging himself off at night when he thought Steve was already asleep. But Steve wasn’t supposed to know about that, so he shoved it away and got back to his orange. They slurped loudly, happy to be gross together without a lady present. No better way to punctuate their last sticky and sweet summer together than with something sticky and sweet.

Also, Steve wanted to kiss him.

Naturally, he started the coffee pot.

Look, he wasn’t _going_ to kiss Bucky. And the fact that he sometimes _wanted_ to kiss Bucky didn’t mean he didn’t want to kiss girls. ‘Cause he did, sometimes. The girl around the corner, Anne something, was pretty nice and would’ve made his ma happy, what with her Irish freckles and all. It just… wasn’t quite enough.

“So what’s the big plan for tonight?” he asked, scooping the coffee grounds, trying to maintain some air of normalcy on this last day.

“Well, pal, I’m glad you asked. We are going – drumroll please – to The Future!” Bucky exclaimed. Steve laughed at that, so Bucky hopped up on a kitchen chair and swirled around, still in his underwear, making sweeping gestures with his hands. What would Steve _do_ without this dramatic asshole? “That’s right, pal. Tonight, for one night only, you and I are setting foot at the Stark Expo. The World Exposition of Tomorrow!” Steve thought Bucky sounded like a circus announcer; he played along, _ooooh_ ing and _ahhhh_ ing. “Step right up for your chance to glimpse the next millennium! Flying cars! Cures for the nation’s ills! Polio – gone! Yellow fever no more! Peace in our time! A radio you can slip into your pocket, yes sir, even you!”

Bucky collapsed into the chair in a fit of laughter, eyes gleaming, citrus juice still shining on his chin. Steve rolled his eyes fondly, always fondly, taking in the easy grin, broad shoulders shaking with laughter, the hard line of his jaw. A face he had to memorize in the next twenty-four hours. If he didn’t already have a notepad filled with Bucky’s face, he’d be reaching for his pencils right this second.

“So, you comin’?” Bucky finally asked after he settled down, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Sure thing, pal.” _Wouldn’t miss it for the world._

“Great! Naomi and Anne are comin’ too! A double date, Stevie, how’s that? One last night out. We’ll be sure to go dancin’.”

Steve tried not to look miffed that the dames were joining them. Honest, he did.

“Okay, I gotta get in this uniform and see my folks. Ma’s putting on a luncheon and my sisters are getting dolled up. Whole Barnes crew this side of the East River’s gonna be there. You’re welcome to join, of course.” Bucky stood and stretched as he said it, arms over his head as he arched backward to the sound of his own spine cracking. It was a beautiful thing.

“That’s alright. Enjoy your family, and tell Becca I say hi. I’ll see you tonight.”

  
  
***

Bucky looked handsome. There was no way around it. He looked tall and sharp, lean and groomed, jazzed just to be above ground another day. Try as he might, Steve couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away.

It wasn’t just Steve, either. _Everyone_ swooned over Bucky that night. Old men with eyepatches and stump legs and leathery skin from the last war clapped him on the back. Girls, all the girls, with their perfume and long legs and pretty hair, hoping for a soldier of their own. A real, stand-up soldier in their midst! How brave, how honorable. Oh, be safe over there! Take care! Always followed by giggles and winks. Steve wanted to yak, but Bucky ate it up, charming everyone who crossed his path but never forgetting the skin-and-bones blond who stood a whole head shorter than him and followed his every move. Every so often, Steve found Bucky’s arm draped over his shoulder while he told a joke or another story from basic training in Wisconsin. Steve tried not to think anything of it. That was just how they _were._ Bucky couldn’t mean anything by it. He _didn’t_ mean anything by it. They were like brothers – of course, on what may very well be their last night together, Bucky would keep a protective hand on the little guy he’d looked after half his life.

For a second, Steve allowed himself to think about the future. It was the theme of the evening, after all. He wished they could just skip ahead to Bucky coming home safe and in one piece and pass over the grueling months of loneliness he surely had ahead of him. The not-knowing of it all would surely kill him.

“You could start a Victory Garden with us!” one girl suggested, attaching herself to Steve’s arm and rubbing her leg against his while he zoned out. He pulled his leg back. Christ. A Victory Garden? That was for punks and dames, not for _real men._ Soldiers. Jeez, he wanted the earth to swallow him up. Realizing his own spaciness, he looked up only to catch one last glimpse of Bucky being dragged away by Naomi, though he could’ve sworn something flickered across Bucky’s face when he saw the lady wrapped around Steve. If Steve squinted his eyes and added a little dash confirmation bias, he could swear it was jealousy. But it passed, and Bucky disappeared with a final salute and a giddy skip in his step.

With some effort, Steve awkwardly extracted himself from the girl – Anne, he remembered – clinging to his side, muttered some lame excuse, and kicked a rock all the way home with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He loosened his tie. The sounds of the fair drifted through the night and followed him home.

How in the hell would he get over there?

  
***

When Steve woke the next morning, Bucky was already gone. He’d taken the sketches Steve left him on the counter and replaced them with a note in his own looping scrawl: _Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone, punk._

“How could I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Steve said aloud to his suddenly unbearably empty kitchen. “Jerk,” he added in a whisper. He didn’t cry until he noticed Bucky left the last orange on the counter, for him.

Steve wiped his nose and ran for the docks. Maybe, just maybe, he could catch a glimpse of Bucky’s troopship leaving the Harbor.

 

***

 

The next day, Steve wrote a letter to the President of the United States of America, asking him to please please send him overseas. He licked the envelope and tagged it with a one-cent stamp with the Statue of Liberty.

The President of the United States did not get back to him.

 

***

 

But the day after that, in an unrelated but rather serendipitous event, he bumped into the esteemed Margaret Carter at a coffee shop in the Lower East Side and asked what someone like her was doing here. She said, “Call me Peggy,” and also, “I’m working on recruiting in the States.” He said, “Why?” and she said, “Because we’re losing.”

He told her he was a willing soldier. She told him to go to an enlistment station – they were everywhere. He told her that he knew that, and also about the fat stack of rejections under his floorboards. She told him there was nothing she could do, but if he wanted to meet her for coffee again tomorrow at the same time, same place, she would be there.

He said he thought he could make it work, as if he anything to do besides stare at the ceiling and draw.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all my music theater nerds, you should know that Steve sells 'papes' for The Sun purely out of my love for Jeremy Jordan as Jack Kelly.
> 
> Also, a minor detail that you don't need to know but that I need to incorporate: Naomi and Anne are the names of my late grandmothers, who I thought a lot about while writing this period piece, especially on my Jewish side. Rest in Peace, Grandma and Gigi.
> 
> (ok you can ignore me again)


	4. Memory Lapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW (this chapter): brief mention of past suicidal ideation

_White Wolf_  
May 20, 2017  


The flap of the tent opened suddenly, wrenching him from sleep to reveal the silhouette of a massive man with broad shoulders and long strides that brought him quickly across the tent and toward the pile of pillows where he was curled up. Without a second thought, Bucky flipped onto his side and reached under his pillow for a knife as the figure took a step closer with both his hands up, palms facing him. He felt feral – his hand couldn’t find purchase on the knife, which he searched for frantically, a little crazed, itching for something, anything, with which to protect himself.

“Hey, hey. It’s me. I’m not gonna hurt you, Buck.”

_Buck._

_Thanks for everything, Buck._

_You shoulda let me at ‘im, Buck._

_Wanna go for a cuppa coffee, Buck?_

_I love you, Buck._

As his eyes adjusted, he made out the familiar features. The stark jaws of a meticulously clean-shaven face. The big schnoz in the middle of his face. The tufts of slightly overgrown blond hair sticking up at the back. The world slid back into place. He was James Buchanan Barnes, and this was Steve Rogers, his former (and maybe not-so-former) lover, and they were in his tent, which Bucky _invited_ Steve to, in Wakanda, and Bucky had had all his knives taken away, even the one he usually kept under his pillow.

He crumpled to the ground. He hadn’t forgotten like this in a long while.

“Aw, Buck,” Steve said, dropping down beside him in an instant, wrapping both massive arms around Bucky and rocking him. Steve was still a little awkward in his own body, a little bulky. They tipped back and forth ungracefully, Steve’s shoes slipping a little in the loose dirt. It was sort of comforting, though. To know that even Apollo had his flaws.

“You’re the only one I got left, Rogers. Why the hell can’t I remember you?” he finally said into Steve’s shoulder. It came out muffled. Steve’s skin was warm, like he’d laid out in the sun for a few hours right before this embrace, but Bucky was learning that that was just the way he was, now. The way he’d been post-serum, but he was having trouble remembering those parts of their lives at the moment.

“You do remember me, Buck,” Steve pointed out, leaving little room for debate. But Bucky knew how to squeeze between the cracks.  
  
“Not like you do.”

Steve pulled back, then, to look him in the eye, keeping a hand planted on Bucky’s shoulders. The missing arm never seemed to deter him.

“Do you remember the last time I visited?” Steve asked, blue eyes boring into him, eyebrows raised.

“Y-yes. But–”

“Then you remember me.”

“But not like _before_.”

“So?”

There was a long pause. Then Bucky, feeling impulsive and frustrated, asked, “Steve, are you in love with me or are you obsessed with me because I’m your only way back to the past?”

Steve looked so hurt that he wished he could take it all back then and there.

“You really think that, Buck?”

“I–no. I don’t know. Sometimes.”

“Bucky, you were my best friend in the universe. I made a million promises to you that I would like to keep. And your memories are better than you let on. You _do_ remember, Buck. Because you tell me stories about it, little details that literally no one else could know. And I know you’re not the man you were before. There are differences. People evolve, Buck. We grow. I like _this_ Bucky,” Steve said, poking his index finger gently into Bucky’s chest, which he liked. “I like this guy right here. I think he’s funny and charming and way better at chess than I am, and I really like spending time with him, and I think I am in fact, falling a little in love with him.”

Bucky Barnes, then and now, didn’t deserve Steve Rogers.

“Besides, I’m not the man I was before, either,” Steve continued, looking down at the earthen floor on which he was squatting. Bucky followed his gaze, noticed the socks and sandals, and decided that now wasn’t the time but they were definitely going to be having a talk about it. Before he could say anything, though, Steve continued. “I killed him, Bucky. I buried that guy in ice, ready to… to burn in hell with you, if that’s what it took. I’m someone else now, too.”

“Is this hell?” Bucky asked, arm reaching out and landing on Steve’s hip. Through Steve’s shirt, he watched his abdominal muscles tighten to keep him from tipping over, precarious as he was. Steve was in civvies, Bucky noticed, khakis and a white V-neck that hugged his muscles. It never ceased to amaze him that Steve was too stingy to buy himself something in his own size. Old habits die hard, Steve had said on one of his earlier visits when Bucky brought it up. Perhaps he was still in denial about how many sizes he’d grown. Either way, Bucky slipped his fingers through Steve’s belt loop to steady himself and bit his lip to keep from crying.

“Well, there ain’t no three-headed dog…” Steve joked. He was always trying to lighten the mood. Shuri’s orders, Bucky suspected.

“‘m serious, Steve.”

Steve considered a moment. “No, Bucky. This ain’t hell. Hell was putting myself between Carter’s legs, knowing I was doing both of us a disservice but not knowing where else I belonged. Hell was watching you fall, thinkin’ you’d died, and later realizing I’d left you for a fate worse than death. War was hell – that’s what Dernier always said, if you remember.” Bucky shook his head. Steve sighed, then caught himself and looked guiltfully at Bucky, then continued quickly, “And, er, discovering I lived after all. Was hell, I mean. That was a real shit day. Dr. Banner told me he can’t kill himself. And I don’t _want_ to kill myself. But waking up that first day, in the future, all alone, knowing that I couldn’t end this life even if I wanted to. That was hell.”

Bucky must’ve touched something sensitive; he hadn’t expected so much to spill out of Steve, especially since he was so guarded these days, careful not to bring the mood down in their limited time together. Maybe that was for the better, too. He wasn’t a big fan of all this talk of Steve killing himself. Not one bit.

“Hell would be doing this without you,” Bucky muttered. Steve nodded with the gravity of what Bucky was saying, and his hand came to life on Bucky’s back, rubbing small circles into the light fabric of Bucky’s shirt.

When they’d gathered themselves, Steve stood out of his squatting position, offering his right hand to Bucky on the floor and pulling him up to a standing position as well. The tent was small but not that small. In the back rested a pile of pillows and sheets, all clumped together nonsensically into what Steve had dubbed Bucky’s Nest. Beside it flickered the fake oil lamp that Shuri had conjured for him since fluorescent lights gave him headaches and this one reminded him of home. There was a small wooden table with intricate designs carved into the top like a mandala and two chairs that didn’t match each other but fit under the table, and he had a big cage with four parakeets in it, each colored differently from the next. _It’s good to take care of something_ , Shuri had told him. Their hushed chirps helped him sleep at night.

For the most part, Bucky took his meals out here, brought to him by various government employees or Shuri, and once, with a long-winded and clearly rehearsed apology on his tongue, King T’Challa himself. Sometimes on good days Bucky would wander the marketplace, especially when he already had to go into town to see the doctor or answer questions for the King’s intelligence officers. It really wasn’t a bad gig. He almost never wore shoes and as much as he’d once sworn he’d never be a country boy, he didn’t totally mind trading in the screech of ambulances and the pigeons that refused to be _shoo_ ed away for the kiss of lake ripples on his toes first thing in the morning and having the sun all to himself.

Like hell Steve would ever find out, though.

“We could sit?” Steve offered, glancing over at the table and chairs. It hadn’t struck Bucky that it was awkward, the way the two of them were standing in the small tent, facing one another. Today wasn’t a good day. He was too scattered, mind ambling, and he wanted to be good for Steve, to bring out that pleasantly surprised half-smile on Steve’s face that he earned whenever he remembered something from when they were young and in love or made a clever comeback that the old Barnes would’ve made.

Finally, Bucky nodded in answer to Steve’s question. He knew he’d missed the cue and come in a second too late because Steve frowned.

On the plus side, at least Steve’s face was an open book. He could measure his progress by the lines of his face.

They sat, and Bucky drummed his fingers on the table, thinking of things to say. Thoughts jammed themselves in every which way, but he couldn’t quite follow one long enough to catch it, and certainly not long enough to offer anything of substance to their conversation.

“Migraine?” Steve asked, before Bucky even knew his head was pounding.

Bucky nodded, kneading his right temple with his fore and middle fingers.

“Want a massage or something?”

Bucky shook his head. _No touch._

“Bad day?”

“Just a little harder today. I know who you are. So that’s good. But Russian, Mandarin, and Yiddish are all competing pretty hard right now for the main controls,” he admitted, talking slow, surprising even himself that he managed to get the words out in English. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, as if that would help. At least he was able to _explain_ himself. Even on a bad day, that was progress.

“You knew Yiddish back then, too,” Steve said softly, leaning back in his chair. “So one of ‘em’s not new.”

“I did?” Bucky asked, figuring it was better to give away how bad his memory was today if it got him a story out of Steve. Sometimes, when Steve told him about the past, things rushed back to him – related and unrelated to whatever Steve was animated about.

The bottom line was that it was always better if Steve was talking.

“Of course. It was a pretty Jewish neighborhood, after all. Your folks spoke it with you at home. I even knew a little, after a while. You and Becca used to speak it all rapid-fire to each other when you didn’t want me to know something.”

“Why wouldn’t we want you to know something?”

Steve looked up at him from under his lashes, a real brilliant smile on his face. “Because I was a little shit,” he explained, as though it should have been obvious. But he didn’t say it in a condescending way, more self-deprecating than anything. “And according to my sources, still am.” Bucky figured he meant the other ex-Avengers: Natasha and Sam and the like.

Embarrassed, because he _knew_ he should know the answer, Bucky swallowed and cleared his throat. Steve had told him there were no stupid questions. This seemed untrue, but he needed to ask anyway.

“It’s on the tip of my tongue, it really is... but... Steve, who is Becca?”

The smile faded from Steve’s face, but he answered anyway. What stung was how the answer sounded rehearsed – the elevator-pitch version of events that meant Bucky had asked this question before. He imagined his father, the lawyer, standing up in court and saying, “Objection, Your Honor. Asked and answered.”

He’d have to tell Steve about the new memory. But first:

“Becca Barnes was your little sister, Buck. She was the oldest of the three, all younger than you. We played with her the most, I would say. You wrote her lots of letters in the war – she always wanted to know about politics, foreign relations, those sorts of things. Very bright, and beautiful. Drove your ma crazy with all her tree-climbing and the mud she tracked into the house. _You’re the only girl in New York City that manages to find mud_ , she used to say.”

Bucky nodded, but it didn’t ring a bell. Normally, a face might come to his mind’s eye, or a quote, or a memory, _something._ Today, apparently, the minions who normally carried out all his neural connections were on strike. Steve caught on quick, eyes narrowing a little. He could definitely see the emptiness in Bucky’s eyes, the lack of recognition.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember her today, Buck. You remembered her last time. And the time before that.”

Because _that_ made him feel better.

“I ain’t sure this is ever gonna get better, Steve,” he blurted out.

“Me neither,” Steve replied honestly without missing a beat, still looking at Bucky like he invented ice cream or something. His point was heard loud and clear: Steve would be here whether Bucky had all his memories or only two brain cells to rub together.

Hm. He might’ve gotten that saying wrong.

“I just can’t trust my own mind. How can it all be here one day and gone the next? Why aren’t things stitching together? It’s been _months_ ,” he sighed. He was tired of making lists for _everything_ , of trying to distinguish memories and dreams and lies. When Steve opened his mouth, Bucky interrupted. “And don’t tell me that progress isn’t linear, because if I hear that one more time I _will_ tear up the next tri-fold pamphlet on you bring me.”

Steve looked crestfallen. The pamphlet thing was a low blow, but at the same time, Bucky was starting to look like a _collector._

_What To Do When You’re Feeling Lonely_

_10 Breathing Exercises For A Quieter Mind_

_Nutrition To Promote Healthy Brain Chemistry!_

(Yes, it was actually called Nutrition To Promote Healthy Brain Chemistry!, and yes, the exclamation point was really there, and _yes_ , the thing was full of rabbit food recommendations guaranteed to make any human sadder than he began).

Steve called it his Happy Brain Diet. Bucky called it Why-Can’t-A-Guy-Get-A-Fucking-Cheeseburger -Out-Here? It was a compromise. That was another favorite word being tossed around these days. _Compromise._ At least avocados were on the nice list.

For a minute or two, Steve just made some awkward gestures, almost reaching for his hand, almost cupping his face, but pulling back every time. Helplessness rolled off Steve’s body, his negative energy coursing through the air. Steve’s bottled frustration was only ever directed internally, never at Bucky or his mashed-potato brain. But it wrecked him that he couldn’t do more for Bucky, and that was hard to watch all the same. There was something in the set of his jaw, then, a look of determination that was at least admirable. Steve was trying _so hard._

“What can I do?”

“Steve...”

“C’mon. What can I do? How can I help?”

“You ask me this every time you come, Rogers. I don’t think there’s anything you _can_ do. I’m sorry it’s not the answer you want to hear.”

Despite Bucky’s disappointing news, a look of renewed determination crossed Steve’s face. He set his jaw. That was a Cap look if ever there was one.

“What’re you scheming?” Bucky accused.

“Nothing.” Bucky raised his eyebrows at that. “Yet,” Steve conceded. “I just want to do _something._ ”

Bucky could practically already hear the distant _pings_ of Shuri’s phone going off. Steve never let her alone. And he never heard the end of Steve never letting her alone.

Across the table, Bucky could see Steve’s mind working. _Fine._

“Here’s something, maybe. I don’t know what, but I want to have an easier way to remember you when I wake up. That’s the hardest part about falling asleep, is not knowing who or what I’ll remember the next morning. And some things are okay to lose overnight, but not you. If I know I’m not going to lose you, then I know I’ll have someone to hold my hand through all the rest of it.”

This time, Steve didn’t hesitate to reach across the table and lace their fingers together.

“Okay, Buck. I’ll think of something. I promise.” He kissed the back of Bucky’s hand.

“I have a question,” Bucky asked. Something suddenly dawned on him.

“Shoot.”

“Did we defeat the Nazis?”

That made Steve look sad. Maybe the question had been a mistake. But he didn’t remember how the war ended, and Wakanda was an undiscovered, uncolonized paradise. The repercussions of a Nazi victory wouldn’t have touched this place.

“Not yet,” Steve answered, solemn.

Bucky nodded, understanding and not understanding all at once.

  



	5. The Luck of the Irish

_ Steve  
_ August - September, 1943

 

Peggy Carter was acting weird. She kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, as if trying to draw attention to them, which was confusing because Steve  _ wanted _ to look but felt he shouldn’t. Pegs was a proper lady, after all. She kept parting her lips, red as dawn, and she was blinking at him a whole lot. He almost asked her if she had something in her eye.

They’d met awhile back when Steve was in line at a coffee shop on the Lower East Side. He’d heard her voice, sharp as a tack, it was really something, and immediately recognized it from the radio. With quite literally nothing to lose now that Bucky was on the other side of the Atlantic, alive or dead there was no telling, he’d marched right up to her and introduced himself. But now they were friends, he supposed, and she wasn’t Buck but she filled the time and knew a lot about the war. She was pretty high up, after all, on short leave in Manhattan on a recruiting stint. She’d admitted to him in secret that she’d been desperate for a break from the front. Besides, it made the Allied forces seem stronger when an actual Brit talked at length about the British armed forces, even though it was hard to get people to take her serious, considering she was a woman and all. Steve didn’t know what it was like to be a lady or anything, but he certainly sympathized with people not who weren’t taken seriously.

“Steven,” she said now, her voice a warning. “You know I… I feel for your cause. You’re a good man. But I’m just not sure…”

“Pegs, please,” Steve said, trying and failing to keep the notes of begging out of his voice. His breath rattled unhelpfully, and he stifled a cough to make himself more convincing. She touched his hair, as they sat on the gloomy steps of Steve’s Brooklyn stoop. Peggy was leaving on Saturday, and she was just about his only chance at getting over there and simultaneously his only chance at staying sane over here. As her departure day loomed closer, his mood only darkened. Soon, it’d be just him, alone again. The streets were mean enough without Bucky’s barking laugh; he’d go nuts without the apple-crisp intonations of Peggy’s articulate British. “When you leave, I won’t have nothing left in this big empty city.”

“What about the recruitment office at…?” she asked, false hope in her voice.

“4F,” he recited. He glared at a taxi car passing by for good measure.

She did the thing with her leg again. He felt it was time to kiss her. He didn’t take his hands off his belt loops as he leaned up and kissed those cherry lips, long and hard, for the first time. She tasted like dawn, too. Like a new day. It was good they were sitting, so their height difference wouldn’t be so obvious. For just a second, he let himself be swallowed by Peggy Carter and forget the world, and the war, and the fact that if she brought her painted nails to his chest, she would be able to count every rib in his skinny chest. 

But she didn’t put her hands on his chest; they stayed primly at her sides. Agent Carter wasn’t the type to be caught full on necking a Brooklyn streetrat on his stoop in the middle of the afternoon. She let out a little “ _ oh _ ” when someone wolf-whistled at them from across the street, and he didn’t know if it was because he was a good kisser or because she’d been caught. 

“Steven,” she said as he pulled away. She couldn’t seem to find a way to say anything else. Her eyes were still closed, savoring. Or regretting, but he really thought savoring. He hurriedly closed his eyes, so that when she opened hers, she’d think he was savoring, too.

“You’re my best girl,” he said, shrugging and looking at her again. It wasn’t a lie. All the same, he felt small beside her. He  _ was  _ small beside her. She was so proper and poised, not a hair out of place. And he was just a punk from Brooklyn, scuffed up and rough around the edges. Motherless and uneducated and dirt poor. He loved Peggy, sure. Was he  _ in  _ love with Peggy? He didn’t know. Nothing had made sense since Bucky shipped out, since his mother died, since he couldn’t afford art classes and dropped out with graphite still worn into the grooves of his fingerprints. He was twenty-four and only trying to make sense of the world, for Christ’s sake.

He winced. He shouldn’t think like that about Christ. He’d do an extra Ave Maria on his rosary tonight. And he’d have to mention it at Confession on Sunday.

Christ.

 

* * * 

 

Two days later, there was a thick envelope – expensive stationary – wedged into the door jamb of his tenement. His heart was in his ears, and he could taste the bile clawing its way up his throat.

He wasn’t a man who got very many letters. And getting letters in these times was either a very, very good sign or a very, very bad sign. A shiver zipped up his spine.

The envelope had no stamp. Hand delivered, then. In perfect, cursive letters was his name on the front. Even the little ‘G’ between his first and last names. Someone who knew him personally, then. He knew who it was from immediately, and he pretended like it didn’t break his heart that it wasn’t from the one person he was hoping to hear from.

Bucky would’ve never signed the ‘G.’

Steve fumbled for his keys, burst into his kitchen, and found his mother’s old letter opener. He inhaled the words on the parchment. Once. Twice. Again.

_ Go to the recruitment center on 171st and Broadway. _

_ Tell them your name. You will be good to go. _

_ Don’t make me regret this. _

 

_ Yours,  
_ _ Margaret _

_ P.S. Burn this. _

  
  


His hands shook as he read and re-read the words – all twenty-eight of them – in complete disbelief. He had so many questions. Who had she talked to? Which strings had she pulled? Why? Would he see her again? Have a chance to thank her? 

Again, he re-read it. When his eyes filled with stinging tears, he realized it wasn’t from the building emotion he should be feeling in his chest, but rather the fact that he hadn’t blinked since he opened the letter.

_ Burn this. _

So he did. With a wicked grin he couldn’t seem to wipe off his dumb face, he dropped the letter on the kitchen table and turned on his heel to the pharmacy on the corner, bought a pack of Lucky Strikes and a lighter, feeling like Daddy Warbucks the way he was spending money like it was nothing, and walked home whistling with his hands in his pockets, pretending he was cool instead of chilly from the night breeze.

It was finally happening. He was carrying on the Rogers family name. He was an American, dammit, and he would finally act like one. He climbed up to his lousy tenement, past their landlady’s door, up another flight of stairs and out the window onto the fire escape.

It took a few tries to get the cigarette lit. He did what Bucky always used to do: packed the box, flipped over the cig in the top left corner for good luck ( _ “That’s your lucky cig,” Bucky taught him when they were twelve. Bill from school had just taught  _ him _ , and Buck was gladly passing on the knowledge, as middle school boys did. “It’s so no one can bum your last cig offya” _ ), and stuck a different cigarette between his perpetually chapped lips. Admittedly, there was no one in the world to bum his cig off him; he turned it upside down anyway. Buck’d be mad if he didn’t, and who in this wide world couldn’t use a little extra luck?

He realized a second later that he had the cigarette facing the wrong way and had to turn it around. He laughed at himself, but it sort of wasn’t funny without anyone to laugh with. If only Bucky could see him now. To be honest, he wasn’t much of a smoker. But this was celebratory, and Lord knew he couldn’t afford an actual cigar.

With the light, he caught one corner of Peggy’s envelope on fire. He leaned forward with the cigarette between his teeth and lit it with the burning envelope. He watched it closely, mesmerized as the white paper blackened, the way the smolder spread and left only ash and dust in its wake. When the flames reached the last corner of the envelope that he was pinching between his forefinger and thumb, he dropped the thing. He liked watching it burn; he and Bucky knew too well that paper made terrible tinder – the plight of a lousy newsie in January who could never quite sell all his papers or make the heating bill – but he liked it burning either way. He drank down the smoke, held it in his lungs, and blew it out neatly. 

He’d heard of a man down in Hoboken caught burning his draft card; he curled his hand into a fist and took another drag at the thought of it. What kind of American would run away from this war?

Steve looked at the gray pile of dusty ash at his feet. 171st and Broadway. That was all the way in Washington Heights. He didn’t want to get too hopeful, but he also sorta wanted to click his heels like that Judy Garland in the pictures. He coughed some, up on the fire escape surrounded by drying linens and the hazy orange glow of dusk in New York, but his lungs were alright today.

Everything seemed alright today.

 

***

 

He did it. He  _ fucking did it.  _

Well, Pegs did it. But. Details.

1A. He could  _ sing.  _ Officially eligible for military service. Right there, in black and white.

Bucky’d been gone a while now. Things had been slow, boring as hell, really, and Steve spent every night cramped with his good ear against the thin walls of the old tenement building, hoping the Rosenbergs would put on their radio loud enough that he could hear. Sometimes it was just jazz music; other days, they put on Rabbi Rubin; but mostly, they, like everyone else stateside, wanted updates on the war. He shivered in his sleep, the apartment much colder without Bucky’s warm-bloodedness filling the room, or at least spinning enough stories to distract Steve from the loss of feeling in his fingers and toes.

The Barnes family was good to him. They always invited him over for Shabbat dinners on Friday nights, even letting him light the candles as a boy even though he wasn’t Jewish. They were Reform, Bucky said. It meant they could bend the rules a little bit. 

The Barnes family was the one flaw in Steve’s plan. He needed to get to Europe. He needed to fight beside their son, their brother. But he had promised to look after them. It was more symbolic than anything else – Becca was taller than he was – but still. He’d  _ promised.  _ In his heart of hearts, he knew that was what Bucky wanted most. Steve, here, with Bucky’s family. Taken care of. Warm.

But they would be alright. Like Bucky’s ma was always saying, the Jews were a resilient people. There were three sisters to look out for their parents and plenty of hands for the chores. Besides, they’d fronted Steve’s hospital bills too many times. His leaving was really just relieving them another burden.

 

***

 

Steve Rogers had never been on a real train – janky subway lines that smelled of piss didn’t count – and had never left New York except to drive with the Barnes family for Bucky’s grandparents’ 40th wedding anniversary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They were sixteen and the whole thing felt scandalous when Mrs. Barnes told them they had to share the bed in the basement and he’d woken in the night with a lanky arm flung over his chest. He hadn’t wanted to move, had liked the feel of a strong, working man’s bicep, the tuft of armpit hair, the smell of summer sweat, but he crawled out from under it anyway. Buck was just a little wine drunk, was all. It was an accident. They almost talked about in the morning, how they’d woken up much closer together than the position they fell asleep in. Opening and closing their mouths in unison, they both had decided against it and started talking about breakfast. Or maybe baseball.

Basic Training was far from home, and it was brutal, and they all got their own starchy, unmoving cots and so he never woke up with anyone curled against him like he had in Fort Wayne, which was a crying shame – he didn’t have the meat on his bones to stay warm at night when the temperatures dropped. And he could use a good necking, all things considered. He hadn’t seen Pegs since the stoop kiss; he knew she’d been scheduled to arrive at Camp Lehigh, but he hadn’t seen hide nor tail of her since he arrived.

He knew Basic’d be bad; he’d known he would be the runt of the litter, if Peggy’s bribery had taught him anything.

He had not known how many synonyms there were for small. Or homosexual, for that matter. Not that he  _ was _ a homosexual, and his mama didn’t raise a fool who’d let just anyone call him one, but still. Steve Rogers wasn’t a man without feelings, try as he might. He was only human, after all.

He hadn’t known 24/7 taunting. He’d never seen bullying like this. It fucking ate at him, and it never let up. Not in the mess hall. Not in the showers, or during drills, or after hours. 

 

***

 

Steve Rogers was getting the shit beat out of him.

“Alright, punk? That’s what I thought. How ‘bout you stay down this time, so we don’t have to sock you in the mouth again, smartass.”

Steve Rogers was not going to stay down, even as they shoved him into the dirt again.

For the third time that week, Steve had overheard something that didn’t sit well with him and had taken it upon himself to stand up against the bullies. A guy named Kevin had said something a little too colorful to one of the showgirls visiting the camp, something about whether she was as easy in bed as she was on the eyes, and Steve had said something like, “cut the shit,” and Kevin had said something like, “make me.” 

Steve couldn’t, of course. Kevin was twice his size, a farm boy from upstate with the forearms to prove it. But Steve would take the black eye to prove he’d tried.

“And what’s this?” came an apple-crisp voice that Steve knew all too well. He dragged his eyes up off the patchy grass where he was being pummeled, up a pair of neat stockings and a navy skirt to meet the disapproving gaze of one Margaret Carter. He licked his split lip and gulped like a cartoon.

“Uh, hi Pegs,” he said around his swollen lip. Kevin released Steve’s collar and turned bright red. That, at least, was satisfying. He fled with his two cronies flanking him on either side.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Peggy said, her voice taut. She helped him up. His uniform was covered in dirt and grass stains from being thrown around like a rag doll, and he couldn’t meet her gaze in good conscience.

Steve put his hands in his pockets, ashamed. “Listen, you shoulda heard what he said about–”

She put up a single finger. He shut right the hell up.

“These men are not your enemy, Steven.”

 

***

 

Even if the men in his infantry unit weren’t his  _ enemy _ , they certainly weren’t his  _ friends.  _ He sat alone during most meals; Peggy would join him for the occasional breakfast, but she was needed and important and high-up, and he was a soon-to-be private with the body of a seventy-year-old and the temperament of a bull. Where he  _ did  _ find friends was in the showgirls.

They were on this real silly tour; Bucky would have absolutely  _ hated  _ it. They danced in skimpy little red-white-and-blue outfits to show off their hips or patriotism or something, and the waitstaff would get the wealthy audience all liquored up during the performance so they’d all donate to the war effort. Steve didn’t care much for the pep rallies the girls threw for the men at Basic, but he liked the women very much. He’d hang around in the backstage area and draw their portraits; most of the girls came from hard upbringings, only had their looks in their favor, and all said this was a better way to sell themselves for money than what they were doing in the Depression. Some of ‘em had never had their picture taken before. He signed every last one of ‘em. They’d tell him secrets and share their candy; they seemed to think he was sort of cute, not handsome like a Hollywood movie star, but sort of adorable and pathetic, like a puppy with paws too big for his body. Steve was okay with that. It was one of the few times in his life he didn’t mind feeling so small – their constant doting was a welcome reprieve from the bullying beyond the staging tent.

He liked Marley best of all. She was plumper than the other girls, with lots of freckles and a smile that could light a cigarette. Marley carried on her a flask of whiskey, and she always shared with Steve when he got scraped up real bad. Which, y’know, was often. But the girls were only there for two weeks, and then their touring show moved on, and Steve was alone, again.

 

***

 

They were issued their dog tags. Things started getting real. He was going to fight in this war.

 

***

On a brisk Monday morning, Steve’s drill sergeant told him he wouldn’t graduate him from Basic training. There were rumors; that he hadn’t run the timed mile fast enough, that he’d gotten too far behind the others, that his color-blindness made him a risk for friendly fire. He’d gained a little respect in some of the tactical exercises; his brain was sharp even if his body was feverish, and he was undeniably the best leader during their teamwork exercises, when they had to practice setting up and tearing down camp or digging well-fortified foxholes. Only problem was no one would listen to him. 

But it didn’t matter. On the day of graduation from Basic, Steve Rogers got his certificate and his army-issued pack like everyone else. Peggy winked at him. 

They shipped out the following day. In the barracks, Steve heard whispers in the night. It was the men in his unit, betting on how long he’d last in the field. They laughed cruelly, and he knew they kept their voices up because they wanted him to hear it. Normally, he would’ve rolled off the bed and led with his fists, but Peggy’d done him a favor. It didn’t seem the time to throw that all away. Instead, he turned over in his cot and closed his eyes and pretended as hard as he could that it didn’t hurt. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he lit a cigarette. It was hell on his lungs and his eyes watered, but it made him feel a little more like one of the guys.

 

***

 

**_Correspondence between Agent Carter and her niece, Sharon Carter, for a school project. Donated to the Smithsonian by the Carter Foundation. Fall, 1991._ **

 

_ My lovely Sharon, _

_ I hope this letter finds you in good health. It is exciting to me that you are learning about the war in your classes. It is hard to believe that enough time has passed that World War II is now safely tucked away in our history books, but it is critical to note that it is still tucked away in living human memory. I do hope I can help you with your project. _

_ You asked me about my role in turning Steve Rogers into Captain America. The first thing you should understand is that Steve Rogers was Captain America long before he enlisted. It wasn’t the title that made him one of my greatest personal heroes. It wasn’t the super soldier serum, either (though between you and me, I certainly never complained about it!). No, he was born Captain America and he died Captain America. All I did was give him the opportunity to prove it. _

_ I remember that day, vividly. It’s the day I changed the world forever, I think. But that’s not how it felt in my cramped little office with smudged red lipstick on the rim of my fourth cup of tea. I thought: I am signing this man’s death certificate. And in a way, I suppose, I was, considering how things turned out. Though with full confidence I can say that I did what Captain Rogers would have wanted. That man would have given himself to the cause any day of the week. I just wish he could know that his sacrifice was worth it. _

_ And that, my dear, was an act of  _ _ Civil Disobedience. _ _ If you don’t know the term, I recommend you look it up. It is never too soon to learn what standing up for what you believe in looks like. So yes, I broke the rules a little bit. In my opinion, everyone should strive to break the rules at least once. In breaking them, I forged a signature or two that let Steve Rogers graduate his Basic Training at Camp Lehigh, which allowed him, ultimately, to save not only the Allied men at the HYDRA weapons facility in Kreischberg, but even, a year later, to save your uncle. It all comes back, my dear. It all comes back. _

_ I tire, now. Please tell your mum I am thinking of her! Good luck on your project, child. _

 

_ Love, _

_ Aunt Peggy _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fun fact: Rabbi Rubin was a real thing. 
> 
> http://www.yiddishradioproject.org/exhibits/rubin/&sa=D&ust=1529151402198000&usg=AFQjCNHjAlOnDSsGa4JAUlkQMk1X2EURWQ
> 
> Also, I looked up a LOT of cigarette lore (as a non-smoker myself) and discovered that it was bad luck in WWII to light three cigarettes with the same flame in the foxhole, because each cigarette gave the enemy time to say "ready" "aim" and by "fire" you'd be dead. Anyway, you didn't need to know, but I did TOO MUCH RESEARCH FOR THIS STORY not to tell you. xx


	6. A Fresh Start

_ Bucky  
_ January 1, 2017

 

Everything was dazzlingly white, so bright that it all blurred into one stream of oppressive light, blinding him except for where he could see the dark skin of the young woman who leaned precariously over him, her face inches from his and her brow furrowed in intense concentration as she worked at something behind his head. Her pink tongue poked out as she focused, almost reminding him of someone. Whatever she was doing, he could hear the quiet  _ clink  _ of metal and  _ snip  _ of scissors. He blinked again, starting to focus. It suddenly clicked that the beeping sound across the room was his heartbeat. It was sluggish, concerningly slow for a regular human. He tried to move his fingertips but couldn’t. It was always bad to wake up before the paralysis had fully worn off – disconcerting to say the least. But the technician wasn’t hurling insults at him or even asking him to get up, so that was a plus. He sort of liked her. She was certainly younger than any of his handlers before – and it wasn’t often they sent in a female, either.

He did a body check. Everything was still slow, his thoughts included. That meant drugs, probably. A glance down – left arm missing – led to his heartbeat spiking in the distance. He had no perception of how much time had been lost while he was under this time – he wondered idly about the year, tried to estimate it by the advanced technology around him. Perhaps he’d jumped forward a few decades. Not that it particularly mattered. It wasn’t like he participated. He was designed for something else, out of time completely.

He tried to do recon, but everything was far away, memories slipping and impossible to hold onto. His thoughts teetered between English and Russian. He liked the English better. The Russian voice in his head was darker, somehow, as if drenched in blood. Mechanical. Feeling slowly returned to his forehead, his fingertips and toes, and finally his mouth – which was suddenly scorchingly dry and causing him such extreme discomfort that his eyes prickled, trying to make tears, but he was too dehydrated to form them. He almost coughed, but didn’t have control of the muscles in his chest to even do that yet. His body was screaming at him. Finally, achingly, he stretched his dormant vocal cords to make contact with the girl hovering over him. What to even say, though? She seemed friendly enough, so he went for the most neutral greeting he could think of.

“H-hi,” he managed, sputtering.

The girl screamed bloody murder, her body collapsing onto his as he startled her and then scrambling off in a flurry of lanky arms and legs – somewhere it registered that the movement had caused him pain, though he couldn’t  _ quite  _ feel it. She clasped a hand to her heart and panted heavily.

“Don’t you scare me like that, white boy,” she gasped in an unfamiliar but definitely African accent. Then, despite herself, she giggled and pressed a hand to her forehead, looking away from him. She couldn’t be older than eighteen. “Thank Bast T’Challa wasn’t here to see that.”

T’Challa? Bast? Perhaps he’d been passed off again. Bucky tried to speak, but no sound came out. She seemed to notice him struggling and rushed to fill a glass – also polished and white like everything else in this room – and moved to hand it to him. He tried to reach up and take the cup gratefully, but he could only lift his arm up to the elbow, so she changed gears and brought the glass of water to his lips herself. He drank slow, treasuring every drop but also buying time to take in his surroundings as he peered over the glass. Pieces were not lining up. She wasn’t… he couldn’t be… this didn’t look like his base… 

This was a laboratory. That much was certain. He was lying more or less upright in a glass tank – a cryotank, the memories swam in. Shocks. Manacles. The whip, in the sixties. The barbed whip in the seventies. The mask swallowing his screams as the ice chased out the warmth in his veins. He took in the girl when he couldn’t make sense of the surroundings. She had a long face for a teenager, all sharp edges, with rich, playful brown eyes and a wide nose, her hair piled up on her head in intricate braids. Her shirt was too small for her – it showed her belly button, and his first thought was that it was unladylike. She smirked at him and somehow, it put him at ease. When he’d drained the glass (noisily, he was forgetting his manners), she set the cup down on a nearby tray, white like everything else.

“What do you remember, Sergeant?” she asked kindly, moving over to one of the computers. He expected another set of wires, but there were none.  _ The future.  _ She was dressed all in white. The brightness of it made his eyes hurt. All of him hurt.

“It’s…you can call me Bucky,” he replied, not sure exactly why the name was his but snatching it anyway. It was becoming clear that whatever this was, it wasn’t HYDRA, so he might as well opt for the truth. “And,” he signed, shoulders slumping forward, “very little.”

“That’s to be expected,” she said, eyes trained on the screen. He tried leaning forward, to step out of the tank when he realized there wasn’t actually anything restricting him, but his muscles had atrophied and his abs felt like gelatin. He had to use his arm, which was starting to function, to support his weight and keep him from tumbling forward. “How do you feel, Bucky?”

“Groggy. My muscles have–”

“–deteriorated, yes. But with your serum, they should be back to normal in just a few days. Sorry about that.”

“That didn’t used to happen,” he murmured, confused. He squeezed his eyes shut, but when he opened them he was still there, in the unwaveringly white room with the strangely intelligent girl who spoke like they’d been lifelong friends. It didn’t fit. He remembered how it used to be, they’d have him practically jumping out of the tank, naked – there was no privacy for a weapon, that would be too humanizing – and flying into his next mission within minutes of awakening. None of this jiggly gelatin bullshit or legs that couldn’t take his weight.

The girl seemed offended. “What, you think we are barbarians? Wakandans are humanitarians. We wouldn’t even think to use the formulas on you that HYDRA used to preserve the muscle tissue. Formaldehyde should never be used on living cells, it’s just…” She shivered, leaving the sentence hanging.

“Yeah.” He knew the feeling. So they weren’t HYDRA, then. What had she said, though?  _ Wakanada? _

“I’m Shuri, by the way.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” They shook hands in an awkward kind of way. Shuri then crossed her forearms deliberately and nodded to him – it must be some kind of greeting or sign. He wished to return it to her, but Lefty was still nowhere to be found. His phantom limb tingled.

“Serg– I mean, Bucky, I know you’ve only just woken, but in that span I’ve already received – what is it now, fourteen messages? – oh, now fifteen – from someone who would like to see you very, very badly. Do you feel up for that?”

Bucky swallowed. Who could want to visit him? Suddenly an image in his head –  _ Ma  _ – dark curls and blue dresses, dandelions, warm eyes, the apartment smelling like fresh bread after synagogue –

“What can it hurt?” he shrugged.

Shuri liftered her thick beaded bracelet to her chin and said clearly, “Brother, send him in.”

\---

Bucky had not even noticed the door at the back of the room – it blended so well with the smooth, glassy white walls – and now it was cracking open. First entered a regal man with curly hair and a friendly face, not unlike Shuri’s. He nodded at Bucky before doing some complex handshake with the girl that Bucky only saw in his periphery because his eyes were trained on the large, sheepish-looking blond following in his footsteps. 

The man wore a navy stealth suit – which made Bucky check his own apparel, a white tank top and loose gray joggers – and when Bucky looked back up the man was smiling big, like he couldn’t help himself, eyes burning something intense. He closed the distance between them in three strides, stopping a  _ polite _ six inches from him. Right.

“Steve,” Bucky greeted with confidence, like a flower opening for the first time. 

“Buck,” the man said in a voice like paper tearing, and then he was enveloping Bucky, winding his arms around his tender body, gone soft and meek in cryostasis. He might’ve mistaken it, but he thought he heard a choked sob at his shoulder. Oh, Steve. Bucky gripped back, held on tight. Steve.

He didn’t quite know the man, not really. His head still pounded, the pieces too scattered to make sense of just yet: fire escapes and piles of snow, assault rifles and flying cars, the sound a limp body makes as it’s dragged through the sand, the Fourth of July. But the name had bubbled up to his lips like fresh springwater, somehow  _ pure  _ and  _ good  _ and  _ true _ , and with it, not a clear timeline of memories, but a feeling that rippled through him anyway.

Возвращение на родину. _Homecoming._

He swallowed back bile and clung to the man for dear life. To Steve. His Steve. The man who wanted to see him so badly. He smelled, not just similar, but  _ the same,  _ like pine. It wasn’t beyond him to notice the way they slotted together, like maybe they’d done this in another life.

_ Think we’ll still fit together? _

_ Just ‘cause you’re big now don’t mean we won’t fit, Steve. My heart’s just gonna have to grow a few sizes to accommodate you. _

_ And my inflated ego? _

_ Damn right, punk. _

Oh.  _ Steve.  _

Steve held him close – definitely sobbing now, though Bucky had the decency not to point out the snot he was getting on his tank top. The door clicked. Shuri and company must be giving them some privacy.

As they damn well should; it’s been a minute since he’s had alone time with his best guy.

“Aw, don’t cry, Steve,” he finally whispered against Steve’s cheek. His hand, which  _ finally  _ had feeling again, came up to pet Steve awkwardly on his back. Meanwhile, Steve’s face had disappeared into his dark curtain of hair.

“Can’t help it,” Steve laughed, watery, as he pulled back to look Bucky in the face. His eyes were all red; he wiped his nose on the back of his hand, a motion so familiar that it cut through Bucky’s entire being.

_ Steve. Steve. Steve. _

Familiarity oozed through him, like the tide coming in. First, smaller memories. Dimly lit European pubs. A tiny bedroom with twin beds pushed together in the wintertime. More memories. Snippets, competing for his headspace. Tents, blood, oranges, the blinding light of Iron Man’s blast before the last Soviet piece of him fell off and died,  _ I knew him _ , the squelch of a knife as he drove it into… into…

Steve’s eyes softened as he looked him over. He looked like he had a million things to say and couldn’t decide where to start – which was probably accurate. Bucky took pity and threw him a bone.

“What’d I miss?”

Steve huffed a laugh and visibly relaxed, broad shoulders lowering from around his ears.

“Where do I begin?” he said, rubbing his clean-shaven face. It finally dawned on Bucky how tired Steve looked. Look at them – just two men who slept the better part of a century but could still use a little shuteye and a warm bed. 

“That much?”

“Depends on how much you remember, pal.”

Bucky played with a loose thread in his joggers, supposing that no answer was an answer after all. Steve would understand. Bucky might not remember every date and detail, but he could still read Steve’s body language like it was an extension of himself – he imagined it went both ways.

“It’s all pretty boring anyway,” Steve covered smoothly, letting Bucky keep that drawer closed for now. A courtesy. Everyone seemed to have an olive branch for him. “Did Shuri give you the rundown yet?”

“No,” Bucky said, voice hoarse as he continued.

“Oh,” Steve said, surprised. This was a speech he clearly hadn’t rehearsed. “Well, uh,” he started, hand scratching the back of his neck in a way that was so undeniably  _ Steve  _ that Bucky actually winced, the familiar mannerisms hitting him in a physical way he couldn’t quite explain. Like receiving a download of memories every time Steve did something that Bucky had seen in his past life. Steve didn’t seem to notice, and all the better. “They think they can help you, with the brain stuff. Your trigger words are still active – we learned  _ that  _ the hard way – and sometimes your memories have been jumbled. HYDRA liked to play with their food. We’re – I don’t know if you know, well – we’re in Wakanda.”

“W-Waka...what is Wakanda?” 

“It’s a nation. A powerful one. Turns out all the poverty and barren desert landscape stuff was bullshit to hide their wealth and power and protect their civilians. It’s – everything, this room even – is made from vibranium ore. That’s, uh, what the shield was made of.” Steve’s face contorted sadly. He shook his head and continued. “They’re the most advanced society I’ve ever seen. Shuri – she’s a princess, that was King T’Challa in here a minute ago – she’s their lead scientist.”

“The kid?”

Steve nodded. “I know.” He quirked a smile. Steve had always believed in kids. Now he flaunted it like he’d been right about them all along.

“So, what next? Shock therapy? Insane asylum?” Bucky suggested darkly, eyes clouding over. It was all too good to be true, and therefore too bittersweet to be here with Steve one last, cruel time before they whisked him off and put his brain back in the blender. Couldn’t anyone just leave him be? He had been doing alright for himself in Bucharest, hadn’t he? Made friends with the baristas at the coffee shop downstairs, fed himself sometimes, learned how to send Twitters. No casualties.

(Okay, _ one _ casualty. But it  _ wasn’t _ his fault. If you prey on girls walking home alone at night, you’re  _ asking  _ for the wrath of the Winter Soldier. He couldn't be blamed for throwing the predator a little  _ too  _ hard against the wall).

But Steve didn’t back down at the harsh words Bucky spat at him – instead he came forward, always coming to face Bucky’s attitude head on, and rested a hand on Bucky’s shoulder “No,  _ God _ , nothin’ like that, sweetheart.” Steve made a face at the word sweetheart, like he hadn’t intended for it to come out. His eyes were wide, searching for a reaction in Bucky, who ignored it temporarily and pressed on.

He’d come back to that later.

“Just put me back under. This, all of this, it’s a hassle, and it’s not worth anyone’s time. My brain’s fried, pal. It’s just… easier for everyone that way. Or put me down–”

“Quit talkin’ crazy,” Steve said. Their accents thickened in each other’s presence, a quiet dance that somehow managed to say  _ I hear you _ . _ I remember. _ “First of all, losing you would never be easier for me.”

The room got heavy.

“And besides, Shuri thinks they can de-trigger you and even restore most of your memories. They think your brain does that on its own, thanks to the knock-off of Dr. Erskine’s serum that HYDRA gave you–”

“You callin’ me a knock-off, Rogers?” Bucky teased. He couldn’t help himself.

“I mean…” Steve shrugged, smiling with feigned innocence. If this were the old days, Bucky would’ve maybe punched his arm, or at least had another witty comeback on the back of his tongue, but his arm was sore from cryo and nothing came to mind. It left something to be desired.

“So what about my brain again?”

“The serum heals, and heals quickly. That’s how I can catch the shield in my hand – bones have broken and re-healed so many times, just tiny repeated fractures, that I’ve achieved a bone density stronger than an average man’s and can catch the thing flying at 50 mph.”

“Ooooh, _ I’m Captain America and I’ve achieved a bone density stronger than the average man!”  _ Bucky mocked. There was that smile again.

“The  _ point _ ,” Steve finally said through his laughter. “Is that your brain’s gonna start healing on its own. Probably already is. Severed nerves reconnecting in ways that wouldn’t be possible without the serum. But brains are tricky, and Shuri thinks she’s developed some stuff to make sure the process goes smoothly. The de-triggering stuff’s not really optional, as you can imagine – that was one of T’Challa’s conditions if we brought you near his people. You, uh, you signed for it, before, by the way. I don’t know if that makes it any better, but this was what you wanted, once. As for the rest of your memories… Shuri thinks they’ll come back to you, but she can speed it up. That’s, um, that part  _ is  _ optional. You don’t have to unlock those. If you don’t want.”

_ There _ was the speech Bucky’d been waiting for. He sighed. As if getting his memories back was  _ optional  _ with Steve practically kneeling before him like a wounded puppy. ‘Optional.’ For fuck’s sake. Bucky would relive every second of HYDRA’s torture if it wiped that stupid, hurt look off Steve’s face.

But it was more than that, too. Bucky  _ wanted _ to know. It was terrifying to remember, but it was a thousand times worse to imagine never remembering at all.

Steve waited a long time before whispering, so faint that a non-enhanced person surely would have missed it: “Bucky, I missed you so much.”

It dawned on Bucky suddenly that this, like everything else, wasn’t about him. It was about Steve. And Steve needed to be able to hold a piece of the past in his hand to believe it was real, and hey, Bucky had always fit nicely into Steve’s hands. Perhaps it was the most old-Bucky thing he could do, to do something stupid and self-sacrificing for Steve.

“Will you tell me something? About us?” His own olive branch, this time.

“Always,” Steve replied, relieved. That’s how Bucky knew he had done something right. He quickly launched into a story about Brooklyn-past, something about selling newspapers on 13th and Broadway, but Bucky wasn’t listening, not really. He was still blinking into the brightness, stunned that he was standing again on his own two feet, that the quiet, indefinite night had ended and the dawn had come.

\---

Shuri gave them twenty-four hours before she and Bucky would take off on what she was generously calling their  _ wilderness retreat.  _ Because there was nothing a just-woken 100-year-old POW city boy wanted more than to  _ hashtag find himself  _ in  _ hashtag nature. _ But Shuri threatened him with a fat stack of articles proving that natural landscapes and fresh air were good for mental health, and never a fan of lectures, Bucky had conceded to taking her word for it. Besides, much as she and Steve were trying to offer him choices, he saw through the paper-thin illusion. It wasn’t really a choice. This was what he had to do. And as long as it wasn’t murdering people in the name of white supremacy and world domination, he didn’t feel much need (or energy, for that matter) to put up a fight. Besides, Steve seemed to think it was best for him, and in all the chaos, he would look to Steve for answers. 

A lighthouse in his heavy fog.

With their brief time, Steve dragged him – sort of literally, considering Bucky’s muscles didn’t want any part of the whole climbing thing – up through dense jungle to the peak of some mountain that Bucky couldn’t name. Or pronounce, quite frankly. 

They sat side by side, legs swinging precariously off the edge of the cliff – this stressed Steve out for some reason, who pulled them back a few feet from the ledge before visibly relaxing – and waited in silence for the sun to go down. A safe distance was kept between them such that even their thighs weren’t touching. This seemed to be a conscious decision, because something about it seemed off. Bucky just couldn’t put his finger on  _ why. _

As the sun started to really commit to her descent with the sky boasting all kinds of reds and golds, Steve broke the silence. “It’s no Grand Canyon, but–”

“Shut up,” Bucky told him. The Grand Canyon rang a bell. The space between them buzzed like it was angry for being there. Suddenly, Bucky wondered… “Steve. Were we…? Did we…?” He couldn’t make himself finish the sentences, embarrassed if he was right and downright mortified if he was wrong. 

Again, Steve seemed to have a rehearsed answer up his sleeve, like he was anticipating this question, if not, perhaps, so early after Bucky’s waking. “Yeah, Bucky,” he said, which surprised him. Even though he’d asked the question, he hadn’t expected such a direct answer, and certainly not one in the affirmative. “We were lovers, once upon a time. But – you know, I want to be clear. I don’t expect  _ anything  _ from you. Not now. Not ever.”

It made him sad. “I’m not Bucky, pal. I’m not the…  _ friend  _ you remember. I’m not him.” He was glad the sunset was spectacular enough that he had an excuse not to turn and look at Steve, even though he could feel Steve’s gaze on him.

“I know that. But will you be my friend now? The future is pretty lonely.” 


	7. The Grass Is Always Greener

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW this chapter for brief suicidal ideation.  
> Additionally, some decisions are made under the influence of a little morphine. It does not get into non-con or even dub-con territory. But fair warning, some medicinal drugs are involved.

_ Steve  
_ September 30, 1943

 

He thought the air would feel different in Europe, somehow. It didn’t, of course. It felt like springtime in New York, except his stomach was actually full and the accents were different.

Steve’s unit, the 69th Infantry Regiment, better known as New York’s Fighting Irish, shipped out mid-September of ‘43. He stepped off the dock where he’d waved goodbye to Bucky’s troopship and onto the gangplank up to the converted Italian luxury liner, the  _ Saturnia.  _ It had been a stormy day, when they loaded the ships with their gear, rations, Stark bombers, and loads of what the men overseas had eagerly requested in their letters – X-rated magazines and rosaries and extra cartridges of cigarettes. An amusing mix, that was for sure. But the steely gray skies made Steve feel like someone – who was he kidding? – like  _ Bucky  _ was watching over him, waiting for him on the other side.

That couldn’t be true, of course. At least, not yet. Steve hadn’t exactly told Bucky he was coming. Instead, he’d mailed the letter that morning, secretly hoping he’d beat it there and forging the date, a little.

_ 8/15/43 _

_ Bucky, _

_ I almost addressed this to “Sergeant Barnes” but thought it’d be too strange. Anyway, bad news. Got drafted. Guess I might be seeing you over there after all. Sorry. I know it’s not what you wanted. Stay safe out there, okay? Kick some German ass, but save a little for me, would ya? Can’t have you winning the war before I even get there. _

_ Your pal, _

_ Rogers _

 

His troops landed in Morocco, then climbed aboard another ship to Italy, where they marched toward a base near Azzano to reinforce the decimated 107th.  _ Bucky. _ Although Steve had somehow (read: Peggy) managed to get his scrawny ass overseas, he and everyone around him knew he was a lousy soldier. He couldn’t see for shit and the recoil of the rifle bruised his shoulder. His lungs gasped for more air than anyone else’s, but he was a tough little thing with a bad attitude and a stiff upper lip. He never fell out of line or missed role call. No one had heard him complain, not even once, not even when they’d marched chest-deep through murky streams and their bedrolls had been damp for days. He smoked to fit in with the others, and shared his rations to get them to like him.

It half-worked. By the second week, he started responding to fairy.

In reality, there was no real fitting in. His commanding officer pegged him early on for just about every lady-job he could think of. Cleaning? Rogers could do it. Working the nursing tent? Steve was on it. Cooking pots of beans and lard? All Steve. He started sympathizing with the women – was this really what it was like to be a slave to man’s world?

He made friends, of course. He took his lunches with Dolly from the medic tent. He escorted the war bond showgirls with the confusingly wide hips and skinny waists around camp, armed as if he could protect them from anything, which he doubted. They made him wistful for Marley, the showgirl he’d befriended back in Wisconsin. His self confidence, which had always been about as high as he was tall, was really in the shithouse. They stayed there about two weeks. Steve only heard gunfire twice, and once was an accidental shot fired in one of their own bunkers. But this was war. It couldn’t stay safe for too long.

He rode in a truck all the way to the encampment near Azzano. Sure enough, he overheard his C.O. talking to Colonel Phillips. They were reinforcements for the 107th. He was going to see Bucky.

That was, if Bucky’d made it this far.

He had to’ve. He was the cleverest bastard Steve ever knew. If he could talk his way out of detention in the eighth grade when Mrs. Stein had caught him with the slingshot next to the broken classroom window, then Bucky could skirt his way out of anything. Surely he knew his way around the battlefield. Surely… 

Not surely. The only sure things were that all men bled and the sun would come out tomorrow, win or lose, live or die. And with the plumes of chemical warfare and the Germans’ ghastly flamethrowers, it seemed even the sunrise wasn’t a guarantee no more. Steve left Brooklyn in August. A Gold Star could be sitting on their dingy little doormat even now as Steve rolled over fields of Italian grass toward Bucky’s regiment, crushing their path beneath the enormous weight of the truck (they didn’t call ‘em deuce-and-a-half’s for nothing) and Steve’s suddenly cold heart.

Well. He was about to find out.

 

***

 

They arrived at dusk. The Italian countryside sprawled out lazily in all directions, the sky somehow bigger here than in all of New York. It was windy, and the sky glowed hazy pink, not a cloud in sight. Steve was cold, which was nothing new, and he bit down to keep his teeth from chattering. He couldn’t bear the taunting it would bring. Not right now. Not this close to Bucky. After the truck lurched to a stop and Steve had caught himself as his momentum launched his tiny body forward, he peeled back the canvas flap and crawled out into the open air. He tried to keep himself from retching but couldn’t, and tried to be subtle as he bent over his hands on his knees, the front of the too-big helmet banging the bridge of his nose with every gag.

He told the guys that it was motion sickness. It was a half-truth. The truck ride  _ did  _ remind him of the Cyclone at Coney Island. Only thing was that it wasn’t the twists and turns of the ride but the warm body he remembered sitting next to him while he rode it that had him spewing out his insides on the rocky gravel. It was pathetic enough that the guys didn’t even make fun of him, just shook their heads disapprovingly and whispered amongst themselves, which was somehow worse than the outright taunting.

Finally, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, splashed water from his canteen into his burning throat, and kicked sand over the small pile of yellow vomit. He caught up with the rest of his troops, already ready to follow orders and take in the new site. There wasn’t time for being sick. He’d learned that real quick.

There were three bonfires going – a good sign, meant that they were far behind the front line and unafraid of giving away their location. Steve’d heard bad rumors about the night-flying pilots of the German Luftwaffe and was in no mood to meet them today. There was a small tent city, not unlike the one Steve had just left behind, two horse stables, and more tanks. Men milled about, one man hobbling by on crutches with only one leg, more hardened than any of the men in Steve’s company who still had clean-shaven faces and panicked eyes and baby fat. They were the kind of men who didn’t have nightmares, yet. 

Steve continued to peer around, taking in the base as he marched in with his unit, when he heard it.

“No fucking way.”

It was a voice that had come to him through fever-induced hallucinations; a voice that had spoken at his mother’s funeral, God rest her soul; a voice that had unloaded all its secrets to Steve’s good ear amongst the clothing lines that criss-crossed on their fire escape. A voice like charcoal and dandelions, summer breezes and fresh fish markets. A voice that beckoned dames and little Jewish grandmothers alike; a voice that laughed with Sarah Rogers, once, and roared monstrously when chasing giggling little sisters. A voice that pinned Steven Grant Rogers in place.

Bucky stood ten paces away, frozen in place as the two men he’d been chattering with stepped ahead, not noticing that their middleman was no longer in step with them. He dropped the firewood in his arms. 

“What is it?” one of his companions asked, dawning what Steve decided was a very unattractive bowler hat.

“I know this moron,” Bucky said, not giving the guy so much as a glance even as he answered his question. His lips started curling up in a goofy smile as if he couldn’t help himself, like he hadn’t had much to smile about in a while, and then Bucky was suddenly animated, jogging over to Steve and shaking his head in disbelief all at once. “The  _ hell  _ are you doing on this side of the Atlantic, Stevie?” he said faintly for only Steve’s ears as he tucked him in for a brief one-armed hug that seemed oddly anticlimactic. 

Bucky was dirty; his hair was starting to grow out a little, and he hadn’t shaved in days. Of course it would be Bucky who pushed the boundaries of the Army regulations to fully master the nonchalant disheveled look. His sleeveless olive drab undershirt was smattered in all kinds of stains, yellow at the pits, a little blood and maybe oil down the front. He was in his Army-issued green pants and boots that had seen better days, his silver dog tags tucked proudly under his shirt against his muscular chest. He was a little worse for wear, but he was  _ Bucky _ , and Steve didn’t even notice that he was still on his tiptoes even after Bucky’d pulled away.

Steve shrugged lamely, in a sort of answer to Bucky’s rhetorical question. Bucky knew what Steve was doing on this side of Atlantic, and it sure wasn’t the trip to the Italian vineyards they’d jokingly fantasized about from their Brooklyn rooftop over a bottle of whiskey. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Bucky said, at first happily. But something dark crossed over his pale face, and as the smile faded, Steve saw something else take its place. “I cannot believe you’re here.”

 

***

 

Bucky should’ve been in the movies. It was something Steve’d been saying for years, but he really believed it as Bucky gave Steve and his men a tour of the camp, cracking jokes and making both units fall over with laughter. He made a big stink of it, selling the place like a five-star hotel despite the ancient-looking latrines and the smell of,  _ you guessed it! _ , more beans for dinner wafting from the kitchen tent. He was all lit up, clearly popular with the other men of the 107th, coating the dust and gore and relentlessness of war with something else. Bucky acted like he was talking to everyone, but it didn’t get past Steve the way Bucky’s eyes darted to him every few minutes, as if he was checking that Steve was really there. Everyone started swapping stories – the new boys sharing tales of the homefront, updates on the victory gardens and war bonds, the fireside chats from FDR, full narrations of the latest pictures and Hollywood gossip that no one really gave a damn about but everyone was hungry for anyway. The ol’ boys shared only the good stuff – spinning tales Steve suspected were only half-true about spearing Germans in half and gunning them down by the hundreds. One look at Bucky when he didn’t think anyone was watching, and Steve knew there were a whole lot of other stories that these men had sewn into their hearts, but he didn’t put him on the spot. Those weren’t stories for tonight. 

Within the hour, the commanding officers told everyone to get some shut eye. Bucky took first watch, climbing up into a tree as the designated marksman with his marginally-better-than-regular-infantry rifle swinging on his back. Steve watched him clamber up there, monkey-like and sure of himself, and waved goodnight from several feet below. It was dark. He’s not sure Bucky even saw. 

 

***

If working all the dame’s jobs was annoying to him before, it was killing him now. Steve was humiliated, watching Bucky duck inside tents full of important people – Peggy, Col. Phillips – moving up the ranks for shooting with the best aim in the entire U.S. infantry. Meanwhile, Steve still hadn’t seen battle, and the only blood he’d managed to spill was his own from another damn bloody nose. 

The air’s thin here, alright?

Bucky was well-respected enough that Steve was quickly adopted into his circle, which he hated. The guys didn’t pick on him because they didn’t want to get soaked by Sergeant Barnes, not because Steve’d proven himself or done anything to earn their respect. It was like falling right back into step in Brooklyn, Bucky trying to keep all the bullies at bay and shield Steve from the world. He might be small, but he didn’t need anyone’s help. 

It turned Steve off. He grumbled around camp, glaring at anyone who dared make eye contact and avoiding Bucky in large groups. The vein popping on his forehead became a permanent feature, and even Col. Phillips, the king of stress himself, told Steve to let his goddamn hair down. But he just  _ couldn’t.  _ Not when he was the laughing stock of not one but two units, only safe from the taunts and name calling when  _ Sergeant  _ Barnes was within earshot.

When Bucky did hear someone attack Steve, calling him a fairy or one of the other hundred nicknames they’d cooked up for him, he became a goddamn pit bull. He hollered down the guy’s throat about brotherhood and unity and  _ pick on someone your own size _ , which Steve took as a backhanded way of saying  _ can’t you see this guy can’t take care of himself? _ Plus, he gave the guy twenty push-ups. Afterward, he’d searched for Steve for over an hour; Steve, of course, had hidden in his tent and cried, which only fueled the self-hatred that licked at him, all while praying his tentmate, John-something, wouldn’t return and find him like this. He was a useless soldier. They were right, all of ‘em. Someone like Steve  _ couldn’t  _ be a real man. He’d be lucky if he saw thirty. The self-pity tears gave him an asthma attack; he considered putting a bullet in his mouth but thought better of it. Instead, he did what he always did – punched something (his pillow) and got on with it.

For four days, you couldn’t find Steve  _ not  _ clenching his fists.

 

***

 

Everyone was restless at night – greenies and veterans alike. The fresh meat stayed up haunted with the frightening paranoia of the unknown, beholden to the dark, unexplored corners of their own imaginations; the blooded older units left stirring all night with a kind of synchronized whimpering plea for mercy, for home, for fallen friends.

The point was, everyone woke up exhausted, and no one said a damn thing about it.

Every day was the same. Wake up, eat, drills, eat, chores, drills, eat, watch. Steve was surprised at how much sitting around there was in war. In all honesty, Steve could see more action in one block of Hell’s Kitchen than he had seen in his entire time overseas so far. He caught fireflies one night for fuck’s sake.

He and Bucky used the downtime to catch up. Although he feigned disinterest, Bucky desperately wanted to know about home, about his sister (“Becca’s gettin’ along fine, holding down the house just like you knew she would”) and about the apartment (“Can’t believe you left ol’ Mrs. Proctor behind! Who’s she gonna have Sunday tea with?”) and the docks (“Yes, they still smell like fish, Buck”) and how Steve managed to get over here in the first place (“Drafted.” “Bullshit.” “They’re  _ desperate,  _ I’m tellin’ ya!” “Bullshit.” “Really!” “What, did you  _ sleep _ your way here?” “No!” “You’re blushing.” “ _ I’m not. _ ” “A little bit.” _ “I forged the papers and Pegs signed ‘em.” _ “Bingo.” “You’re insufferable”). 

It felt good, shooting the shit with Bucky again. Almost like nothing had changed, though of course just about everything had, from their body counts to what continent they were standing on.

(Someday, Steve would look back on this and scoff.  _ As if nothing had changed _ , he’d thought back then, ever dramatic. How terribly innocent, how beautifully unchanged, they had been. They had no idea what change even  _ smelled _ like, back in those days on the western front).

“You get my letters?” Bucky asked him, once, wringing his hands and looking at Steve real nervous-like, biting his lip and everything. Steve frowned at him.

“No,” Steve said. “Sorry. Guess whoever lives in our tenement must have them now.”

Bucky blanched, then seemed to accept it. That was weird. Finally, he shook his head as if to clear it.“No, it’s… okay, probably. You’re here now, ain’t ya?” Bucky had laughed awkwardly, his face stressed. He put a hand on Steve’s shoulder in the big-brother way that he liked.

“Sure I am. Why’dya ask, anyway?”

“No reason.”

 

***

 

Finally, Steve learned what war was. It was long, drawn-out lulls of boredom punctuated by frantic, life-and-death bursts of sheer terror that made your heart thump right out of your throat. It was a full-body experience, and the English language could not do it justice (Steve would take these words back after he read  _ Night  _ by Elie Wiesel, but until then, he stood by them).

They got  news of the German coordinates at the eleventh hour. Steve’d never seen a fort break down so quickly; by 22:20, they were on the march, the entire campsite on their backs as they moved in eerie, inhuman synchronization through the black night. No one said it aloud, but Steve could hear it in his head all the same.

_ Left, left, left-right-left. _

Some of the men sang to the rhythm, if you could really call it singing.  _ We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here _ , they chanted _. _ At least until it pissed off their CO, which was usually a few verses  _ after _ it had started to piss Steve off. We’re here because we’re here? That was it? What happened to fighting power-hungry Nazis? Protecting freedom, no matter the price? 

He was quickly learning that war  _ wasn’t  _ like the pictures.

Bucky marched beside him, but there was something cold and distant and unforgiving where his usual warmth would be. It was unwelcoming, and that made it disconcerting. There were no shared grins, no knocking elbows. As Steve stole glances at the war-hardened soldier that stood where his best friend used to be, Bucky’s stoic face never so much as twitched in his direction. Onward, only.

At the eighth mile, Bucky whispered, “Give me your canteen.”

“I’ve got it, Buck,” Steve huffed, out of breath.

“Give it to me,” Bucky said through his teeth, eyes forward but left hand outstretched subtly in Steve’s direction.

“That an  _ order _ , Sergeant?” Steve hissed back through his own gritted teeth. Barely. His face was getting hot and his hands balled into fists. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek.

“Damn right it is,  _ Private _ ,” Bucky replied without an ounce of humor in his steel voice.

Steve glared at him and passed off the canteen. By dawn, Bucky was carrying half Steve’s load. They dropped the gear at mile twenty-seven. They set up camp. Everyone stayed nearby, on alert, ready for the order whenever it came. Steve sat in the grass and fiddled with the safety on his gun, glowering at anyone who came near. Bucky wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole, didn’t say one more word to him.

_ Swell. _

There was gunfire in the distance. Louder than Steve expected it would be. No one slept a wink.

“You hear that, boys? That there’s what we’re having for breakfast,” the Colonel announced when he’d gathered the troops. He was macabre, that one. Steve made eye contact with Carter during Phillips’ less-than-inspirational speech. She grimaced; he returned the favor with a tiny salute that made her smile. It was all he had to bring with him into battle, tomorrow. That flash of pearly whites. 

 

***

 

In the morning, as promised, the boys marched into battle.

At every turn, Bucky was _ there.  _ ‘Shield’ would come to mean a lot of things to Steve Rogers, but this one, his first one, was by far the worst. It was his human shield – Bucky putting his beating heart between Steve and anyone that dared cross him. His best friend using his own body to keep Steve safe. Nothing but mere flesh and bone blocking lead and shrapnel.

Bucky seemed to know him better than he knew himself, cutting him off at every turn and being there before Steve even knew where his next move was, like  _ very  _ high stakes chess. And Bucky was a marksman for crying out loud. He should’ve been up high, peppering Axis soldiers with his semi-automatic from above, not on the ground with Steve, jetting out in front of him at the last second and shoving him sideways.

If Bucky had seemed suave in his uniform in Brooklyn (and let’s be honest, the guy would hardly ever take it off, proud of his service, maybe, but probably more proud to finally own a piece of clothing that fit and didn’t have a single hole in it), it was nothing to how comfortable he looked in it now. War suited him. He put it on like an old coat. He fought in a cool, calculated way, Steve noticed. 

That was, until Bucky got injured.

It wasn’t bad. That was to say, it could’ve been worse. At least, this was what Jacobson yelled frantically at Steve’s bad ear as his world tilted sideways and the ground faded in and out of focus. 

_ Bucky. _

He hadn’t even seen what had happened. One second, he was frantically reloading his bolt-action rifle, hunched behind a dirt mound but still half-exposed, and the next, Bucky had jumped up with a howl and disappeared behind him.

“MOVE, PRIVATE!” someone yelled at him.

His legs wobbled, but he moved. A bullet cruised through the space where his head used to be.

_ Shit. _

Bucky’s weight was gone from his side. It had happened too fast. He’d been shot, but where? Leg? Torso? He hadn’t collapsed, but he’d been whisked off quickly, yelling Steve’s name and protesting all the while, and Steve thought he would hear the echo of the moan that came from some pain deep within Bucky’s chest for the rest of his damned life

He blinked, and his ears rang, and his vision pulsed in a way that vision definitely shouldn’t, and that was coming from a far-sighted colorblind loser who might as well start using echolocation. His first battle, and already he could hardly stay upright.

_ No, _ he thought like a crazy person, letting his brain talk to itself.  _ You are going back out there and you are finishing this war, Rogers.  _

With renewed…  _ something  _ (Steve decided it was bravery, even if someone [read: Bucky] might later call it stupidity), Steve crawled out from the relative safety of the trenches ( _ how’d I even get in here? _ he thought, realizing battle blackout was a real thing) and toward the bloodshed with little plan. He tried to concentrate. What could a fella like him do out here? What were his strengths?

Well, he was small as shit.

For the next two hours, Steve crawled through the stiff grass on his belly around the perimeter of the field, quiet, patient, enduring the burn in his thighs and forearms, the blood he could feel congealing in his left sock, around the perimeter. At every friendly soldier he came across, he asked for a grenade. Slowly, his pack started filling with them. Three. Five. Nine.

When he had enough, he grunted his way toward enemy vehicles, from the tops of which Germans were gunning down Allied troops.

There were perks to being invisible your whole life.

With practiced moves that took hardly any strength at all, Steve ripped the pin from grenade after grenade and watched the trucks explode, one after the other. Damn. Maybe he  _ coulda  _ been a pitcher. Much as their yells suggested they were looking for the snake in their grass, he was already fifty paces away and hidden by the haze of smoke. Meticulously, he made his way back to the Allied side, where he saw that the tide had ever-so-slightly turned in their favor. 

“Someone’s taking out their reinforcements! Look!” shouted Dum Dum, pointing a finger at one of the burning trucks.

“Nah, that’s where they keep their ammo!” another replied, ejecting the bullet casing from his gun with an audible  _ cl-clack. _

Steve caught his breath in the trench beside them and eavesdropped.

“That’s just where they keep their marksmen,” another disagreed.

“All we needed was a  _ distraction _ . Whoever blew up those trucks is a genius.” And with reloaded guns, the three men tore out of the foxhole and back into the spray. 

Steve didn’t say anything. He smiled the smallest smile to himself, and then nodded himself out of it. Back to business. Bucky was hurt. The battle was still raging only meters from his helmeted head. His skin was cut up from head to toe, and he had a bad stitch in his side that he clutched with both hands. But. He had done it. He had made himself useful.

Six hours later, he heard the boom of Colonel Phillips’ voice. “The Germans are in retreat!”

 

***

 

Whether it was the Catholic God or the Jewish G-d or maybe they were the same God or maybe there was no God at all, Steve couldn’t be sure anymore, he and Bucky both made it out of the battle alive. Shaken, but alive. 

Another thing war was: the realization that any of them could be gone tomorrow.

Steve was shaken by the brutality of it all. Most of the soldiers in his unit were, seeing as this was their first real taste of violence this side of the Atlantic. The skirmish with the Italians as they departed Morocco hardly counted as violence after what Steve had seen today. Men were hugging, or went quiet, or made filthy jokes, or pulled ragged photographs out of their breast pockets, or smoked up their entire ration of cigarettes. Coped. Bucky was shaken, too, though, and that didn’t make sense. He’d already seen so much. Why would this time be any different?

Maybe it was just something you never got used to.

Deep down, Steve figured he knew why this time would be different. Given Bucky’s disobedient behavior on the field – a.k.a. following Steve around like his own personal bodyguard, which definitely  _ wasn’t  _ Bucky’s orders – it wasn’t Bucky’s own mortality he feared, but Steve’s.

A dark thought crossed his mind: was he putting Bucky’s life at risk by coming over here?

When they got back to their base, Steve went straight for the medic tent and relief washed through all five-and-a-half feet of him. Bucky was sitting up and chatting with Dolly of all people. His thigh was wrapped – the bullet must have missed the femoral artery, thank  _ Jesus _ – and he seemed to be flirting, perhaps a little miscalculatedly, judging by the slightly glazed look in Bucky’s eyes and the lack of amusement in Dolly’s.

If Bucky was flirting, well. He was back to himself, then. He would be okay.

Steve exhaled noisily. He couldn’t help it. He grabbed onto an empty hospital bed to balance himself and tried to ignore the fact that the bed was still warm, and what that meant for its former occupant.

“Come to visit me on my deathbed?” Bucky joked, hearing Steve’s exhale and turning around. It was not funny. Steve told him as much, but Bucky only shrugged. “‘s not so bad, Stevie. Bullet didn’t even go in very far. It’s just a surface wound.” He stretched out his foot as if to prove that it was fine, but the grimace he made as the muscle tightened was unconvincing. Then, seeing that Steve still didn’t look satisfied, he reached out and put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, much like he had once before ( _I’m with you ‘til the end of the line_ , he’d said). “Really, Rogers. I’m gonna be fine.”

Steve nodded fervently because he knew he was supposed to and because quite frankly he couldn’t bear to hear Bucky say he was fine one more time. He couldn’t even look at him. 

“Dolly – would you be a  _ doll _ ,” Bucky started, a shit-eating grin on his face at his own joke, which had undoubtedly been used by many an injured soldier given the daggers her eyes had flattened into, “and give Steve and me here a minute?”

She looked at his bandaged thigh skeptically – then back up at him, her eyes finally landing on Steve. 

“You know how to dress a wound?” she drawled, annoyed and raising her eyebrows skeptically at Steve. She literally had to look down her nose at him – he hadn’t realized that he’d been inching himself closer to Bucky this whole time.

“I-I do, Dolly,” he said. She must have sensed the honesty in his voice, because she looked at her watch, rolled her eyes, and reached behind her for a lady-cigarette, a shiny Marlboro Red. 

“ _ Fine _ ,” she conceded, stepping away from Bucky. With a little shove, she pushed a roll of gauze into Steve’s chest. He quickly fumbled to grab hold of it as she moved toward the flap of the medic tent. “I’ll take my smoke break, then. But I’ll be back in  _ ten _ . And I don’t want no funny business in my workspace, ya hear?”

The tent flap swung closed dramatically behind her swinging hips, and they were alone.

“A stick up her ass, that one,” Bucky said, turning back to Steve and giving him a smile bordering on manic. 

Steve was not feeling the same way.

“Gee, who else do I know who’s got a stick up their ass?” Steve accused, getting all up in Bucky’s face now that he knew Bucky was going to live. In retrospect, he should have been a little more gentle. The thigh could’ve gotten infected, after all. But the point was that it didn’t, and Steve was fuming about the battle, and Bucky  _ wasn’t taking this seriously. _

“Woah, there,” Bucky said, putting both his hands up. The universal sign of surrender. Steve trampled right on.

“Don’t  _ woah, there _ , me. You coulda got yourself  _ killed _ . What the hell did you think you were  _ doing? _ ”

“Steve, you are… I think you’re great, the way you are, I do, but let’s be honest, you  _ can’t _ –”

“I can’t  _ what _ ?” Steve snapped. He could feel his face turning red.

Bucky bit his lip, choosing what to say. 

“I can’t  _ what? _ ” he demanded again. He spat in the grass that made up the floor of the tent. 

“You can’t get hurt,” Bucky mumbled. “I mean, you  _ can _ get hurt, but I can’t  _ let _ you…”

“Why the hell not? It’s my  _ duty _ !”

“The hell it is!”

“ _ Since when did you become the gatekeeper of who lives and dies in this war? _ ”

“I–I didn’t  _ say  _ that–”

“You didn’t have to! Why are you being so goddamn  _ protective of me? _ ”

He licked his lips. They were already chapped from the yelling. Bucky’s chest rose and fell, and he looked away before burying his face in his hands. Then he made a sort of half-assed gesture with his right hand, and mumbled something into his hands that Steve couldn’t hear.

“You, uh, you gotta say it to my good ear,” Steve said, his annoyance fading as he saw how upset Bucky was. He tried to coax him out of his withdrawn position.

“I  _ said _ ,” Bucky repeated, laboring through the words with embarrassment. It took him great effort to continue. “ _ Because I’m in love with you! _ ” It was quiet for a while. Steve wondered if the other men in the tent on the other side of the canvas divider had heard them. But the chorus of eerie groans from the other side continued without pause, so perhaps the morphine was strong enough that they hadn’t heard, or at least weren’t paying attention. As if the Earth hadn’t split open mid-conversation. As if everything hadn’t changed. As if time had continued and the world still moved on its axis around the sun and the sandhill cranes would still migrate this November. As if Bucky hadn’t broken the one unspoken rule they’d somehow forged without ever discussing it: bury your feelings and suck it up like a man.

Steve’s retort died on his lips.

The anger evaporated.

He thought he should say something, but all that came out was, “Oh.” And it was more sound than word. His hands made their way to his hips. 

“I, look, Steve, I’m – I’m  _ sorry _ , okay? I didn’t mean to tell ya, it’s, look it’s not even a big deal, I’ve still got Naomi at home, it doesn’t have to–”

Without thinking through anything at all, Steve launched forward and kissed him about as gracefully as a dehydrated twig can work around an injured thigh to meet the lips of a guy a foot taller than him sitting on a hospital bed.

Bucky gasped with pleasure anyway.

It was different from kissing a lady. It was hotter, temperature-wise, for one (but also the other way, too, if the fizzling in his stomach was anything to go by) and despite Army regulations they both had five o’clock shadows competing to rub each other’s faces raw. Of course, it felt  _ wrong _ and part of his brain screamed  _ yes  _ but the rest of his brain scolded  _ what the hell do you think you’re doing.  _ Men don’t… men don’t  _ do  _ this. Right?

Well, with Bucky breathing hot down his neck, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Steve pulled back first, so completely surprised by his own courage that he had to stumble backward to believe it was real, and thank God he did because at that exact moment, the tent flap opened and Dolly reappeared, stinking of smoke.

She looked at the pair of them – a foot apart, Steve standing between the space where Bucky’s thighs were spread on the hospital cot, both flushed with what had to be deer-in-the-headlights fear plastered across their sweating faces. Without missing a beat, Steve dropped into a squatting position, the all-but-forgotten gauze still in his hand, and started rapidly undoing the blood-soaked bandage on Bucky’s thigh and reaching for the bottle of rubbing alcohol nearby.  _ Act normal, hell, act normal, act normal. _

Dolly’s lips pulled up in a lopsided smile on one side. Bucky ducked his head, flattening the hairs that stood up on the back of his neck, and Steve trained his attention on the gauze, not even sure what he was doing, just trying to keep his hands moving and  _ not  _ look Bucky or Dolly in the eyes.

“Been busy in here?” she asked, her voice light. Steve just tried to keep his hands from shaking. If anyone found out that the two of them had just kissed, there was no way either of ‘em would make it home alive; even if they did make it home, they’d be stamped with a blue discharge, which was about as good as not coming home at all.

Steve cleared his throat, coughing a bit. “Yep, just, uh, just cleaning up the hit. Not too bad.”

“Not too bad at all,” Bucky echoed. Steve could catch the glow of warmth in his voice. When he looked up Bucky’s leg, he saw Bucky peering over him, a goddamn  _ twinkle  _ in his eye.  _ Shut it _ , he mouthed to Bucky, who might’ve been on more morphine than Steve realized.

They’d gotten away with it by the skin of their teeth.

__________________________________

 

**Interviewer:** So, how did you know Steve Rogers, better known as World War II hero, Captain America?

**Proctor:** [laughing] Oh, dear, I was just their landlady.

**Interviewer:** You say “their.” Who is they?

**Proctor:** Well, James Barnes, of course. Wherever you could find Steve Rogers, you could find James Barnes. Inseparable, those two! And pains in my [bleep] as well.

**Interviewer:** Can you tell us a little about what it was like to know those two?

**Proctor:** Two fine gentleman, they were. Always up to no good, though! [laugh] Went through more cigarettes than they ought to’ve, and the tall one, James, oh I wanted to cut that hair so bad.

**Interviewer:** Tell me about their apartment, James’ and Steve’s.

**Proctor:** Slum, you mean? Those were the Jewish parts, back in those days. In Brooklyn, of course. They were lucky if they had electricity six days a week. I gave ‘em a deal, though. I knew James and the Barnes’ from Synagogue. Cheap rent if they did a little fixin’ up now ‘n’ again. They were good sports about it, knew their way around a toolbox.

**Interviewer:** When’d they live in your place?

**Proctor:** Oh, golly. That would’ve been… 1936 to 1942? That sounds right. James enlisted at the end of ‘42, and Steve wasn’t far behind him. And the rest, you know, is history.

**Interviewer:** Did you rent out the place after Steve enlisted?

**Proctor:** No, I… well. I said it’d be here waiting for ‘em when they came home from the war [tearful noises].

**Interviewer:** Take your time.

**Proctor:** Thank you, thank you. No, I’m fine, really. 

**Interviewer:** So… they never came home from the war. What happened there?

**Proctor:** Dammit, I swore I wouldn’t cry. [shuffling noises]. No. No they didn’t, the boys never did come home. James, of course, left both parents and three sisters behind. They sent the youngest over to my place when they got  _ the letter.  _ Didn’t want to mail me a copy. She said that Becca – the oldest – would have fits of denial and they needed it as proof that James wasn’t coming home when she went off the rails like that, poor thing. I mean, an empty grave is hard for a child to understand. Stevie – we always called him that – little Stevie lost his ma to TB some years before the war. I was his next of kin, after Jimmy… you know. So I got his letter right to my doorstep. The war took both of ‘em. Just like that. [snapping sound].

**Interviewer:** How do you feel, now that there’s talk of turning Captain America’s old bedroom into a walkthrough museum?

**Proctor:** Silly. If they think I’ll sell out, they’ve never met someone from Brooklyn! I knew those boys, came over for tea every Sunday morning. James used to steal me the good salmon from the docks. They were a quiet pair. Happy, you know? Steve especially would hate the bells and whistles. [a pause]. James might like the attention of a museum, come to think of it. But not if Steve didn’t. They’d want folks to donate to our veterans instead, not line up at this old tenement for a photo op.

**Interviewer:** Mrs. Proctor – can I call you Bernie? – you just alluded to something folks have been speculating for years. Were Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes engaged in the scandalous homosexual affair some have accused them of?

**Proctor:** Oh, honey, don’t be foolish. There was nothing “ _ scandalous”  _ about those brave men.

 

_ Johnson, Brandon, and Bernadette Proctor. “Captain America: Twenty Years Later.” Life, 14 June 1965, pp. 33–35. _


	8. Crisco and Other Losses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, TW (this chapter): brief suicidal ideation

_ The asset  
_ June 27, 2016

 

Colonel Rhodes couldn’t walk.

Colonel Rhodes couldnn’t walk, and it was his fault. Well, it was Steve-Captain-America’s fault, but everything that was Steve’s fault fell under the umbrella of everything that was its – Bucky’s, his name was  _ Bucky  _ – fault. Steve Rogers was emotionally compromised, and that  _ was  _ his fault. He should have known better. Hid better. Steve-Captain-America should not have found him. HYDRA did not condition their asset day in and day out for him to get caught by Peggy fucking Carter’s grand-niece at his fucking safehouse in Bucharest. 

Cognitive lapse. If the Winter Soldier had not wanted to be found, it would not have been found. Which meant… 

He decided not to think about what that meant. Probably, mostly, that it was his fault. Again. He was a selfish creature. He had let himself be found, despite the anticipated emotional compromisation of Steve-Captain-America. Which had led to the War Machine spiraling down to the Earth in a heap of dust, like in the cartoons, except he wasn’t smiling and there wasn’t toast on the table and Becca wasn’t pulling his hair. 

Becca… where had  _ that  _ come from?

He shook his head. Now  _ he _ was letting himself be emotionally compromised. 

Unacceptable.

Colonel Rhodes couldn’t walk.

He calculated twenty-seven-and-a-half-times (once, he forgot who he was mid-calculation. Undesirable outcome. Unconscious for unknown duration of time).

This was the math:

Colonel Rhodes’ fate with the Asset present: 100% chance of paralysis

Colonel Rhodes’ fate without the Asset present: 2.8% chance of paralysis

He ain’t real familiar with the U.S. Army anymore, but he was pretty sure that a Sergeant ranked a whole lot lower than a Colonel. Conclusion: insubordination. Synonym: desertion. The Winter Soldier was evil. Now James Buchanan Barnes, beloved Sergeant and alleged best friend of Steve-Captain-America, was a traitor. He had failed on all counts. A bad weapon; a bad friend.

_ “You hear about ze Benedict Arnold at Normandy? They say zat General Patton shot ‘im himself in the head three times _ .” The memory tasted like vomit and whiskey. Traitors deserved to be shot in the head. This, above all things, he remembered.

He looked at the Glock in his lap. He should probably just kill himself.

He looked up, to the cockpit where Steve was manning the plane (likelihood Steven Rogers had a pilot license from this century: -46.8%). His resolve wobbled. He wanted to touch him, to see if he was real. The feelings toward Steve-Captain-America were strong. Positive. He had saved the man’s life, once. He had also been the one who brutally endangered it, but. Details. Perhaps he could save the man’s life again. To make up for it.

Maybe he should not kill himself.

The brain was twitchy. He had a lot of the pieces; they just didn’t want to arrange themselves in the right order. It still supplied words like  _ ain’t _ , which Steve says, so it must be an Old Word. It also supplied words like гамбургер and 鸦片, which it – he – did not remember learning, which meant they were either downloaded (painful) or learned before a particularly effective wipe (also painful).

They were going somewhere neither the Soldier nor the Sergeant had ever been before: Wakanda. The exposed wires where his vibranium left arm had been were frayed and live, giving him little shocks when there was air turbulence. He did not like them. He was glad to be rid of the metal arm, even if it was forcibly removed by Iron Man. The arm had liked doing things without his permission, and it was Soviet, and it made him look like a robot and not handsome. Sam-with-the-wings had told him that he had good hair. He liked his hair. His hair could not make up for the fact that one of his arms was made of metal, though. It couldn’t really make up for the fact that it was now missing and a little charred and he leaned sideways after all those years of overcompensating on his right, but that was okay. Aesthetics were low priority. Well, medium priority.

_ Low priority. _

Hmph.

“You doin’ okay back there, champ?” Steve asked. He blinked.

“Fine, pal,” he said. “Thanks.”

He did remember Steve Rogers. Skinny little Steve Rogers, with the skinny little fists. Something about him made him think of citrus, so close, like he could really taste it. 

He couldn’t taste things anymore. HYDRA had made sure of that. But he had the memory of citrus, and that was still good, and it was all Steve. His brain was getting clearer. The asshole, Zemo, had burned through a lot of his progress, he thought. He thought he was really starting to remember. He had been getting closer.

Plums. The getaway bag. It hadn’t all been bad.

Zemo had set him back. Just ten goddamn words, and he was a gaping fool, a mindless drone, killing machine extraordinaire, at your fuckin’ service.

Then again, he was a killing machine before, too. He had seen in the museum. He had a double-digit body count long before the Germans got a hold of this body. No one had had to brainwash him for that. He’d done that  _ willingly.  _ Enlisted. James Buchanan Barnes had been a killing machine since Pearl Harbor. That shit was in his genes.

“What are they gonna do to me in Wakanda?”

“Help you, Buck. They’re gonna help you. I have King T’Challa’s word.”

He laughed, then. It wasn’t a happy laugh. “Help me? How the hell will they do that, Steve?” The tongue could do what the brain could not, like they were disconnected. The New York drawl dripping from his mouth had come outta nowhere, surprising even himself. It seemed to please Steve-Captain-America, though, who matched his accent right quick. 

Assessment: cute.

“I dunno, Buck,” Steve said. He said ‘Buck,’ a lot. Three-point-eight more times than the average person uses their conversant’s name in a sentence. Conclusion: Steve-Captain-America liked saying the word ‘Buck.’

Also cute. His toes curled in his combat boots. Not… unpleasant.

“I don’t like going around with these trigger words in my head, Stevie.” Stevie? “I can’t – we can’t trust this body. My brain. I’m dangerous, Steve. It’s my fault Rhodes sustained those injuries.”

“ _ It is not– _ ”

“Save it.”

Silence. Unpleasant. Awkward for the first time since they docked the aircraft. He should speak again, probably. Steve’s heart rate audibly increased. Highly negative.

“Steve,” he said, in a gentle way he didn’t know he could. Vocal intonation this body has not used in seventy fucking years. He could be… soft. “I put you between you and your friends. Promises were broken ‘cause I came out of hiding. I knew that my brain was fried, and I didn’t turn myself in to the authorities. Now Captain America –  _ Captain fucking America  _ – is a wanted fugitive, and for what? A taste of 1930s Brooklyn? A loaded gun that could go off at any moment?”

“Well, if I’m gonna play Russian roulette, might as well do it as authentically as possible,” Steve-Captain-America replied, because he was a smartass.

“Smartass.”

“So you  _ do  _ remember.”

If James B. Barnes threw a shoe at Steve-Captain-America while he was operating an aircraft, it was because the Winter Soldier made him do it, and you can’t prove anything.

Improvement.

“I’m serious. You gotta put me down. I’m a dog that bites.”

“You’re a human being, a POW, and my best friend.”

“The asset has no friends.”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ hate that guy,” Steve agreed. Funny guy. “But Bucky Barnes is talkin’ to me right now, and I care about him an awful lot. So, one friend.”

“Don’t.”  _ I am a minefield _ .  _ I am a cactus. I am the thing you should keep away from. I am ready to explode at any moment.  _

“Too late,” Steve-Captain-America replied, nonchalant. Like he had already made up his mind. The way he was talkin’, all casual-like, made Bucky reel. If he knew one thing about Steve, it was that he was a stubborn moron. If Captain America said it was too late, it was damn well too fucking late.

This was a mess. And it was all his fault.

Steve should have let him drown in the goddamn river.

“Steve-Captain-America?” he said. This time, Steve-Captain-America winced. Cognition lapse.  _ Fuck.  _ “I mean, Steve? Sorry, sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Steve whispered. Now Steve-Captain-America was definitely sad. Bucky had made him upset. “Please don’t ever be sorry for forgetting.”

“Okay,” he said. He was whispering too. He felt the wet on his face before he realized he was crying. He prayed that Steve kept staring straight ahead. He did. Tears wiped before observed by third party. Positive. Also, negative. 

Long pause. The aircraft moved through the sky like a knife through Crisco.

“Steve, what is Crisco?”

That lightened the mood. Steve started talking about the Old Days. Some of it he remembered, or at least made little pictures in his head. Some of it didn’t. Focusing on all of the words at once was hard. Steve had passionate feelings about Crisco and its subsequent decline from the groceries, which they now called supermarkets, which was  _ a real loss, Buck, I mean, these folks don’t know who their butcher is, and they got all these brands, a hundred kinds of orange juice– _

Distraction: successful. Keeping Steve-Captain-America talking was good. He got the feeling that Steve had not said this many words his entire time in this century. He did not like the feeling very much at all. Conclusion: Steve was lonely. 

His remaining hand curled into a fist.

Steve-Captain-America talked all the way to Wakanda. A normal human would have slept. They did not. Steve had to operate the plane, because computer-voice-JARVIS belonged to Iron Man, and Iron Man was the reason for the One-Armed Wonder, so the plane was in manual. Bucky did not sleep because of adrenaline powered by fear powered by years of systematic torture and electrocution and high doses of cocaine. Self-diagnosed: anxiety. Also: because he liked that Steve-Captain-America was talking. 

It was good that the talking put Steve in a good mood. Because as soon as they landed, Bucky Barnes had some demands to make. The first one being: put him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun tidbit: The Russian says 'hamburger' and the Mandarin reads 'opium,' if you were wondering.
> 
> At least, this is what Google Translate tells me they say.


	9. Half-stupid

_ Steve  
_ November 3, 1943

 

“What was that?” Steve called out to Colonel Phillips, who may or may not have been talking to him as he muttered past. It was always hard to tell with the bad ear. Steve was in the middle of taking steel wool to a particularly stubborn pot and was eager to do just about anything else. He elbowed his ass into this war to man up and fight in it - not  _ feed  _ it. The girls in the kitchen were real nice, but couldn’t these folks see it was his God-given duty to bleed in this war? And  _ not  _ from a bloody nose or a run-in with a paring knife. He might not be big, but he knew he could outlast the others, squeeze into tight spaces, strategize… 

At this point, he didn’t have much to lose. He tried again. “Sir!”

“No time, Ranger.” The Colonel marched past him. Jeez - what was the point of shipping him out if they wouldn’t even tell him what was going on, much less let him see the front line? Or any line that wasn’t the queue to the dining hall for that matter.

“It’s, uh, it’s Rogers, sir!” Steve said eagerly anyway, dropping the dishes and jogging after Phillips. “I’m sorry, it’s just, you look stressed,  and I – is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can get out of my goddamn face.”

“Sir–”

“Go write letters to your sweetheart, Ranger. I’ve got real shit to do, like figure out how to wrangle the 107th-”

At that, Steve’s interest piqued tenfold. Bucky and his unit had marched out almost three weeks ago. Steve’d managed to grow a  _ full beard  _ in that time. His veins went cold. “What about the 107th?” he asked carefully. Phillips’ face blanched like he’d made a mistake.

“None of your damn business, boy-”

“With all due respect, sir, I’m just as willing to die in this war as anyone else. I got brothers in the 107th.”

Finally, Phillips turned around, a twisted smile on his face that Steve distrusted immediately. “I got brothers in the  _ ground _ , Ranger. I got more blood on my hands than you’ve got in all seventy pounds of you.”

“Ninety-five pounds, sir,” Steve lied. He’d lost five pounds overseas.

“You ain’t just  _ willing  _ to die, kid. Someone like you’s askin’ for it.” He laughed at him, then, cold and bitter and humiliating in a way that even Steve, who’d been bullied his entire life, felt deep in his core. It churned his veins and set his jaw. 

“I am, sir. For what’s right, I’d make the ultimate sacrifice. A hundred times over. Now, sir-”

The Colonel waved a hand at Steve to shut him up; it worked. It was probably for the best, too – Steve could feel his cheeks reddening with frustration. He had to actively unclench his fists.

“Save your breath. The rest of the 107th got captured by the Germans this morning.  _ That’s  _ the ultimate sacrifice, you hear me?  _ Those  _ are brave men. So why don’t you bite your damn tongue when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and get back in the kitchen, boy. That’s an order.”

***

Steve had never been fond of following orders. After Phillips left him in the dust with his mouth hanging wide open and insults bubbling on his tongue, he deserted kitchen duty and angrily stomped over toward Carter’s tent.  _ She _ , at least, might understand. But when he approached her beige canvas tent, its flaps snapping in the wind, he heard voices inside. Small as he was, Steve army-crawled along the outside to listen in to the argument floating out of the tent.

“I was worried that the radical faction was growing.” He heard her voice, like windchimes on a sunny afternoon no matter the circumstances. But he was listening for Bucky.

_ Dammit, Steve. Concentrate.  _ It startled him to realize that he was thinking the words in Bucky’s voice.

“...more radical than  _ Nazis _ ?”

“Indeed.”

“That even possible?”

“They call themselves HYDRA. You know the myth. Cut off one head, two more will grow back in its place.”

“It’s sick.”

Steve waited longer, his chest aching as his ribs pressed into the hard, compacted earth.

“You think we can send a rescue mission?”

“They’re miles from here.”

“And so far behind enemy lines.” There were at least six of them in there. Steve had a hard time keeping track of the voices, save for Peggy’s. It wasn’t hard – she was the only woman ever allowed at these sorts of meetings. 

“–as good as dead–”

“Should we start typing the KIA letters? I think we’re running low on stationery but there’s a camp east of here…” 

“Seems premature.” Peggy, that time.

“Kreischberg really isn’t  _ that  _ far.” Steve perked. Finally, a name. A place.  _ Something _ . Oh, Buck.

“Quite frankly, we don’t really have men to spare, sir.”

“We  _ never  _ have men to spare,” Peggy snapped, her accent strong. It wasn’t funny, but Steve’s lips twitched – he almost smiled at her sheer conviction, that powerhouse of a woman.

“Well, if we’re going to act, it should be tonight. Otherwise it’s just–”

“–too late.”

“The unit’s wounded. Half of ‘em are in the infirmary with dysentery, and the other half can barely walk with the trench foot. We’re still waiting on reinforcements from France. It’s not a good move. I hate to call it on those men, but…”

“...we’ll lose more if we follow. You’re right. It feels like a trap.”

“Gather the troops. Let’s break the news.”

“They’re not gonna like this.”

 

***

Steve scurried away from the tent flap just in time for his ‘fearless leaders’ to let themselves into the autumn air without spotting their eavesdropper. Somehow, they didn’t look somber enough for six people who had just decided the fates of over four hundred men.

_ Bucky. _

Steve heard the whistle. He knew exactly what it meant – where his station was, the proper military salute, standing at attention. Steve Rogers knew just where he was supposed to be when he heard that whistle shriek.

Naturally, he turned on his heel and started running in the opposite direction. He knew it was at least half-stupid to deliberately disobey his orders, and it was at least half-stupid to try to go after an entire unit of capable, captured soldiers who might not even be alive at this point, and it was at least half-stupid to try it on his own, given that his body rejected _walking_ _up stairs_ let alone _mortal combat_. But half-stupid ideas had done a lot for him in life. He’d been half-stupid to pick a fight with Tommy Walsh when he was twelve, but that’s how he met Bucky in the first place. And he’d been half-stupid to introduce himself to _the_ Agent Carter in a coffee shop in the Lower East Side, but that’d worked out, too. Not a bad record, really. 

His current half-stupid idea began cementing itself in his mind.

While the other privates in his unit sauntered off to hear a surely depressing and uninspiring speech from the Colonel who was going to let the captured 107th die at the hands of not only Nazis but this crazy HYDRA faction of Nazis, Steve snuck into Peggy’s tent. Maybe, just maybe, there’d be something to go off in there. A lead. Anything. 

He had to see Bucky one more time. Just… just at least one more time. Bring his body back if need be. For his parents. For Becca.

His heart pumping adrenaline through all ninety pounds of him, Steve crept into the tent, his size an advantage as he slipped around the camp. Inside, he found a small wooden table covered in papers – maps, letters, chicken-scratch, lists. Despite the color-blindness, he could figure out most of the map. He’d never been one with a photographic memory, but he tried to memorize as much of it as he could. Someone before him had mapped out the route of what was  _ almost  _ the rescue mission; he committed as much of it to memory as humanly possible. He lost himself in the piles of papers and just as he was scouring the lists, feeling upside down, and nauseated by what he was reading about the Nazis and these  _ camps  _ of theirs, there was a crunch of gravel outside.

He was too slow – there was nowhere to go, and the tent flap was opening  _ now.  _ Quickly, he shoved the papers back onto the desk, ready for the whooping that was sure to come, closing his eyes for it. This was it. He’d ruined his chances. Now he was going to be sent home, and no one would ever go back for the bones of the men in the 107th. He made the sign of the cross, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Steven?”

He exhaled like God had spoken to him directly.  _ Holy son-of-a- _

He wasn’t going home.

There was hope yet.

_ “Peggy,”  _ he breathed like a man given a second chance at life. He had to muscle down an anxiety attack, but she wasn’t having it.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing in here?”

Steve stepped forward, put a hand on either side of her smooth face, and pressed his lips to hers, hard. Later, he could regret that. Later, he could figure out what it meant that he liked kissing Peggy but still wished away the smoothness of her cheeks for something rougher, masculine. 

  
Later. Right now, he had an  _ opportunity.  _ He pulled away, panting a little, and at least felt a little satisfaction at the look of genuine surprise on her face. She reached up with her pinky finger to fix her lipstick and run a hand through her hair, as if to touch it up, though of course it was already perfect.

“I – Peggy, Agent Carter – I’m sorry for coming in without permission. But I, you have to understand, if the men of the 107th are being held hostage by the Nazis, someone ought to go after ‘em. We don’t leave men behind. It’s not the right thing to do.”

“Oh you  _ are  _ an all-American, aren’t you?” she said, like Steve was giving her a headache. Which, to be fair, he was pretty good at giving people. He remembered the way Bucky used to pinch the bridge of his nose whenever Steve’d managed to get himself bedridden. But she also looked like she agreed with him. He saw straight through it, and pushed on.

“Ma’am, my best friend in the whole wide world is out there. Send a rescue mission. Or – or let me go after him. Please.”

“It would cost you your life, Steve,” she said, shaking her head. But her eyes didn’t look convinced.

“It’s not like I’m much use here, anyway. The stew might come about ten minutes later without me cutting carrots for an hour, but otherwise–”

“I’m not telling you this,” Peggy said, confusing him for a moment. She literally turned around so she wasn’t facing him. “I’m not telling you this, but Howard Stark’s motorbike is in Lot 3 behind the medic tent. And I don’t know the code to the lock, so I’m not telling you the code to the lock, but if I did know it, I still wouldn’t tell you that it’s 1-9-1-7. And I wouldn’t tell you that it’s got a full tank of gas, or that you can take the map off this table here, or that you can go try… try to rescue your friend.”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it. There was an awkward stillness in the air, the weight of what he was about to do beginning to fill the tent like a balloon. Before it became completely unbearable, Steve unfroze and started moving, mechanical, his brain short-circuiting with disbelief as he hesitantly pulled one of the maps off the table and folded it up carefully. Peggy must have more faith in him than he thought. Guilt started collecting in his heart, but he pushed it away. He couldn’t let it get in the way of the immediacy of the situation. He had to leave. Tonight. Now.

Peggy still hadn’t turned around, and he was glad for it, considering how hard it would be to look into her face right now. She had given him permission to make something of himself, but she was also risking her reputation and her position, and more likely than not, she’d just agreed to send him to a miserable death. But. She had faith.

Before leaving the tent, the map in his hand, Steve turned around. “I’m sorry, Peggy.”

“It’s alright, Steven. You loved him first.”

Unsure what to make of  _ that _ , he let himself out of the tent and with quiet footsteps, made his way to Stark’s bike, the hum of twilight coming down in full force. His absence in the kitchen would be noted soon; there wasn’t much time. 

He felt the click of his army green helmet as he simultaneously threw a leg over the side of the motorcycle.

Well - simultaneously was a little generous. It took him three tries to swing his leg over the bike properly. It wasn’t  _ his  _ fault that he was 5’4’’ and the bike weighed six times what he did.

Once he’d climbed on the damn thing, he revved the engine, lighting up a cigarette for good fucking measure and to calm his nerves. As someone who spent a fair chunk of his life on the brink of death, the only thing Steve could think was that this was what it felt like to be alive. His heart stuttered with it.

The only thing holding his muscle to his vibrating bones was the sheer adrenaline of desertion as he raced through the woods. He knew he was doing the right thing, even if it felt wrong. It wasn’t their fault that those who called themselves leaders had become so desensitized to the loss of human life that they could shrug away the loss of 400 men. Men with mothers still washing the sheets of empty beds. Wives, sisters. Brothers, lovers, cousins, nuns and rabbis, teachers.

The motorcycle was huge and heavy, but he pulled the throttle harder in the vague hopes he might go a little faster.  _ Come on,  _ he thought in the bike’s general direction.

Hours passed. Forests glided by in his periphery. Steve was always good with directions (he could hear Bucky in his head teasing him about his moral compass) and he knew he was getting close. There was smoke on the horizon.

German smoke smelled different, somehow. 

He abandoned Stark’s bike for the sake of quiet, stashing it behind a large tree and gambling that it would be here waiting for him when he was done. But he’d march back if he had to. And he’d do it with Bucky and the 107th in step beside him or he wouldn’t do it all.

The base was surprisingly easy to find – at least, it was as he clung to the back of a canvas truck with men speaking rapid-fire German. They barreled along to what could only be a HYDRA base: a foreboding warehouse covered in scraggly, dormant ivy with an ugly, skull-like serpentine symbol graffitied out front.

A faction more extreme than the Nazis, Peggy’d said. Steve shivered.

He considered his options. As the truck neared the base, passing through fields of barbed wire and probably mines, the barricade doors opened for the familiar vehicle – God knew what they were transporting. He waited until the right moment. Finally, Steve ripped the pin of one of the three hand grenades he’d stolen and lit the truck up from the inside, jumping from the rear as he did so.

In a split second, machine gun fire started hailing down from every direction. It was a fortress – of course they’d have marksmen ready to take out an intruder. Without thinking, Steve picked up the blown-off passenger door of the truck, wiedling it gracelessly like some kind of shield as he was pelted with bullets. Sweating, he made his way across the yard, ignoring the pieces of charred flesh that had flown from the truck. Come on,  _ come on.  _ He shot back with surprising accuracy for someone with as bad of eyesight as he had. Small and stealthy, he snuck off across the yard and up to a pair of double doors. The guards fired at him, but he swung the car door with speed that surprised even himself, slicing open the first guy’s leg and smashing in the face of the other. Without waiting to determine if they were dead or alive, he snuck in through the doors – how the hell had he made it  _ inside? _ – and down a long hallway, abandoning the truck door as he did so and slicing his arm open by mistake. The gash wasn’t bad, but it throbbed and bled into his uniform. His boots squeaked loudly on the concrete floor. He could hear the thunderous stomping of German footsteps on his tail and skidded past a stocky little shrew-like man, impossibly smaller than  _ him _ , with gray hair and the thickest glasses he’d ever seen. 

“Where are they? Are they here?” Steve yelled at the man while blood and sweat mingled in a hot trickle down the right side of his face. His mouth was dry as he pinned the German shrew against the wall. But the man just glared at him and squirmed under his arm, and Steve didn’t have time to argue with him or demand answers – the footsteps behind him were getting closer, and guns were firing again. He let go of the man, who waddled off hurriedly in the other direction, and in doing so dropped something onto the floor with an unmistakable  _ clink. _

Keys.

Steve and the Kraut made eye contact for a split second before both lunging across the hallway; it was dangerous to spend even another ten seconds here, what with the Nazis already on his heels, but he couldn’t do anything much if he found those guys without a way to get them  _ out. _

His fingers curling around the metal, Steve scooped up the keys, kicked out the knee of the German, and made a quick one-eighty. He was running out of  _ time. _ He made haste down the gray hallway, lungs screaming at him, running full-tilt with no idea what lie ahead, around any corner. He had  _ no game plan. _

Steve huffed, his chest heaving laboriously, as his hands pressed into drywall. A dead end. This was it, after all. Even though Peggy’d been betting on him, risked her position for him. Despite Bucky, probably only meters away, depending on him. Any second now, the Nazis would round the corner and turn him into Swiss cheese. He could hear the little old man shouting, presumably telling them which way the intruder went–

–and then Steve felt the rush of cold air, and looked up, and was saved. The one place no bulking German soldier could follow him.

The vents.

***

It took a few minutes for him to collect himself; he had to actually pinch his elbow to remind himself that it was  _ real  _ and that this wasn’t no fever dream or purgatory. The vent was dusty and acrid, and it took everything out of him to hold in his cough and not give away his location. His eyes watered miserably, and he cut his elbows on the rough metal, leaving a trail of his blood behind, but on he went, listening through the vents, sirens blaring while the Germans scratched their heads and yelled at each other. His heart thumped in his chest and rang in his ears. He was so  _ close.  _ He wanted to know what the Germans were saying, to find out if anyone from the 107th had been left alive; it was hard to piece anything together from up here. He silently cursed himself for studying Latin. 

After quietly and cautiously elbowing his way along for about thirty minutes, Steve saw through one vent what looked to be  _ cages  _ filled with… with  _ men.  _ He wiped his eyes and looked again, but it wasn’t the dehydration. They were really men in cages. His jaw dropped.

He listened, pressing his good ear against the grate. First he caught a French accent. Then an American. These were POWs. Leaning up against the slits in the grate, he scanned the room. Thankfully, the alarms were still blaring and would mask his noise. Without pause, he turned himself around in the vent and kicked out the grate, which clattered all the way to the ground with a loud metallic crash. He kicked his legs out and jumped to the ground, screwing his ankle on impact but ignoring it for now.

“What the hell?”

“ _ Que diable? _ ” 

“Who are you?”

Steve scraped himself off the floor and brushed off his pants as all eyes turned to him in the low light. He coughed from the dust he’d just kicked up, and thought hard. He didn’t know these men, and certainly wasn’t ready to get himself or Pegs in trouble. Besides, who would take his lead if they thought he was the half-stupid private that he was?

“I’m Captain…”  _ Jesus, Steve, think!  _ “...America?”  
  
They looked at him. He looked at them. 

“That’s right, I’m Captain America,” he said with more conviction. “Let’s get you guys outta here.” The third key on the shrew’s ring was the ticket. With a  _ click _ , the lock opened and the heavy door swung open. Hushed cheers erupted from the men who stared at their tiny, unlikely savior in disbelief.

“Captain America, huh?” a young Japanese man said through a smile, clapping Steve on the shoulder. 

Dum Dum Dugan, who Steve immediately recognized from the 107th, came up behind him. “What, we takin’ everybody?” he asked rudely.

“I’m from Fresno, ace,” the man replied before Steve had even registered the racist bullshit. He’d tell Dugan off later – first, he had a question for him.

“Dum Dum – is there anyone else? I’m looking for Sergeant James Barnes.”

Dum Dum looked at him confused for a second, and then recognition lit up the man’s face. He must not have recognized Steve now that his eye was swollen shut and he was covered in soot from the vents. “Little Stevie Rogers? That you?”

Steve saluted, becoming impatient. “Yeah, yeah, it’s me, Dugan. Now can ya tell me what happened to Barnes?”

The look on Dugan’s face wasn’t promising. “There’s an isolation ward in the factory. But no one’s ever come back from it,” he said solemnly. Took off his hat, even.

Well, Steve didn’t come this far to turn back on Bucky now.

“All right. The tree line is northwest, eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast and give ‘em hell. I’ll meet you guys in the clearing with anybody else I find,” Steve said, turning around the opposite way the guys were running and starting to climb the cages to get back into the vent.

“Wait! Do you know what you’re doing?” a black soldier asked him. Damn. These HYDRA people must have captured more units than Steve’d thought.

“Nope!” Steve called back over his shoulder.

“Then let me come with you!” the man yelled, giving Steve a boost as he crawled on top of the cage. With dexterity, the man followed; he was strong and limber and ready to fight – even though a stubborn part of Steve wanted to say  _ no, I can handle this _ – he wasn’t going to lose Bucky over his pride.

“Sure,” Steve said, offering the man a hand and helping him get to a standing position. “The vents are the safest way around. Think you can fit?”

“Think so,” the man replied, still holding Steve’s right hand and turning their grip into a shake. “Jones, by the way. Gabe Jones.”

“Steve Rogers.”

Gabe lifted Steve up to the vent and let him wiggle his way inside by his limited upper arm strength. He quickly followed, jumping up and shimmying his way in as well. They moved through the vents, Steve first, Gabe a few feet behind to distribute their weight. It was helpful to have someone with two working ears beside him. Not only could Gabe  _ hear  _ what they were saying – he started whisper-translating for him.

“You speak German?”

“Three semesters at Howard,” Gabe explained, and Steve could almost hear the shrug in his voice.

They soldiered on; it was obvious when the captured men had broken free – a whole new round of gunfire and boots stomping filled the air. Both of them tensed, nodded at each other, and kept going. There were few signs of life, since most of the battle seemed to have moved outside, but men with clipboards were still slipping around. Gabe caught a few words and names.  _ Johann Schmidt.  _ Somebody named  _ Zola. The Valkyrie _ , something they were building. It was mostly just vague snippets, things Steve tried to commit to memory in case he got out of here and found any of this useful later. They kept moving, ears open, the metal rubbing their elbows raw as their spirits sank.

“Sergeant… three… two… five five… seven…”

Steve almost fell through the vent right fucking there, knocking his helmet hard against the steel frame and biting back a loud curse.  _ Bucky.  _ He’d know those numbers anywhere. He froze, and Gabe froze behind him. With a finger raised to his lips, Steve gave Gabe the universal cue for quiet and then crawled toward the light – the grate at the end of the vent that would let him see into the room below.

Peering down through the limited slit in the grate, Steve took in the room – no, the  _ laboratory _ – beneath him. It was gray and dim and smelled of chemicals, and the tools lying about looked less medical and more like torture devices, given their sharp edges. There were syringes of blue and clear fluid on low metal tables and clipboards absolutely wedged full with yellowing notes. It was eerily silent save for the  _ drip drip drip  _ of a leaking, rusted pipe and the rattling, haunting breaths coming from the center of the room.

Because there, shackled -  _ shackled  _ \- to the operating table was Sergeant Barnes of the 107th,  _ Bucky _ , very much alive, though Steve tried frantically to understand what was being done to him. It took everything in him not to just shout his name from up above. But he had to be smarter than that.

“He’s down there,” Steve whispered to Gabe.

Hoping Gabe would catch on, Steve carefully rolled one of his last two grenades back to him through the vent for a whole heart-stopping minute. Gabe picked it up, nodding with understanding, and turned around, crawling in the other direction. A few minutes later, from down the vent, in a black darkness that Steve could no longer make out, came Gabe’s voice:

“What can you see?”

“It’s him, he’s in some kind of lab.”

“I’ll create the distraction on your cue.”

At that moment, the shrew-like man that Steve had bumped into in the hallway bobbled in, pushing his glasses up his nose and reaching immediately for one of the medieval instruments on the table near Bucky’s head. Almost reflexively, Bucky started to squirming against his restraints, a silent scream on his face even though no sound was coming out.

“I can’t watch,” was all Steve said before kicking down the grate and following it down.

He barely registered the explosion Gabe set off above him.

***

When all of the men, Steve and Bucky and most of the 107th and the Allied fellas from other units as well (Gabe was 92nd infantry and proud), had miraculously made it out of the warehouse alive, and the gunshots no longer rang out, they encircled Steve, like  _ he  _ was supposed to be giving orders. Well, he had called himself Captain America, after all.

He was sure he’d never live  _ that _ one down.

On his order, the men began to march. Despite Bucky’s protests, Steve lit up cigarettes as he marched, feeling big for the first time in his small life. But the march was hell on Steve’s body, and the HYDRA break-in had  _ already  _ been hell on his body, and he could feel himself running out of steam. Bucky fussed about him. Still, they marched on. There weren’t exactly a lot of options.

En route, they ran into a small gaggle of journalists who’d gathered near a well in an abandoned village, eager to hear the story of this rogue mostly-American mixed-up battalion.

“Who are you guys?” one had asked.

“Why, we’re the Howling Commandos!” Dum Dum had shouted, a completely made up name that soon became an inside joke amongst the men.

“Who’s your leader?”  
  
“Captain America!”

The men sounded as lunatic as they felt. They were manic, laughing in the face of the confused journalists who looked like they’d never skipped a meal. It was a great big joke to them, to leave the journalists scratching their heads. What did they know of war, anyhow?

“Can I borrow your camera?” Bucky’d asked out of nowhere. It had made Steve’s head whizz around. He hadn’t said much since Steve pulled him off that… that  _ operating  _ table. 

“You know how to use it?” the journalist questioned.

“ _ You know how to use it? _ ” Bucky mocked, grabbing the thing with practiced, calloused hands. “Stevie, come here! Let’s get a picture of Captain America!”

Just like that, he’d snapped the shot; Steve wasn’t even looking, his face exhausted and bloody as he choked down another drag of his cigarette. The journalist had even let Bucky keep the photo – it was a polaroid, after all, and he’d sort of waved it over her head to keep it from her, anyhow. Bucky snatched one of their pencils and wrote in his looping handwriting:  _ Our hero, Captain America. November 6, 1943. _ Then he’d stuffed the thing in his breast pocket and left the poor journalists alone.

Steve’s men didn’t stop for long – only long enough to share some of the journalist’s food and quench their thirst from the well, filling up any canteens they’d managed to hang on to. They were off again.

As they marched, the cough came on real bad, and soon a fever was catching up with him. He wondered idly if he’d caught Bucky’s walking pneumonia, though Bucky seemed awfully healthy for someone who’d seemed inches from death but two days ago.

In the end, they were surprised that Steve made it back to camp at all.

To say he ‘made it back’ at all was generous. For the last few miles, Steve was being carried by Gabe and Bucky on either side. He couldn’t have even fought it if he’d tried. Upon arrival, Steve collapsed from fever, swallowed whole by a throbbing darkness but somehow aware, maybe on a subconscious level, of Bucky hovering nearby.


	10. THE LIVING LEGEND AND SYMBOL OF COURAGE

_ the asset?  
_ January 15, 2014

 

_ The asset’s never been to a museum before _ , he thought as he passed under the shiny, reflective doors of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.

A smaller voice in his head asked:  _ but have I?  _ To that, he didn’t have an answer.

He was stuck on the word, ‘I.’ Somewhere, a memory floated to him. A new paperback, still crisp before being cracked open for the first time, smelling of trees and ink. A red cover, though he couldn’t remember the title to save his life.

A passage he’d read in high school.

 

_ “The word ‘We’ is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. _

_ What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey? _

_ But I am done with this creed of corruption.  _

_ I am done with the monster of ‘We,’ the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.  _

_ And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.  _

_ This god, this one word:  _

_ "I.”  _

 

It wasn’t fair. He could remember  _ passages  _ but could barely remember who he was.

He shook the image from his head. He was tired of memories floating to him – near consciousness, just under the surface, where he couldn’t quite reach them, but close enough to torment him. He knew they were  _ there  _ and just out of his grasp. Slippery, like trying to catch a fish in an ocean with his bare hands. He missed the mental quiet of the Soldier and yearned, briefly, for a wipe. Not to be at their hands again – he couldn’t let them  _ use  _ him like that – but G-d, the peace of it was to die for.

He groaned, lowered his ball cap, and stepped into the refreshing but sterile air conditioning of the museum.

There was a brief moment of panic when he first caught sight of the metal detectors, but the arm hadn’t set one off yet, and he discreetly discarded all four of the knives on his person in the eight strides between the door and the metal detectors with the kind of sleuth that almost made him smile. It had to be some sort of record. He had a sudden desire to high-five someone over it – it was fucking  _ cool  _ – but there was no one to turn to, so he kept his head down and allowed himself to be herded through security.

He passed through easily – terrifyingly easily. Didn’t they know his body count? Couldn’t they sense the coiled killing machine in their midst? It was scary how easily people could be fooled. But of course, that’s where his mind  _ always  _ was.  _ Who’s lying to me? Who can be trusted?  _ This was the realm in which he existed – where everyone was the enemy, and everyone was armed. In any given moment, he could recite the closest exit, object most easily turned into a weapon, and the fastest path to someone’s LAD artery. It was automatic. Effortless, like breathing.

On second thought, breathing was harder.

He couldn’t go to  _ the  _ exhibit. Not yet. It would be too much, somehow. Besides, the museum was free (is this what  _ he  _ gave his life for?), and he had all day. All  _ year _ if he wanted. He was  _ free. _

There were a few displays that rang a bell – Lucky Lindy’s Spirit of St. Louis from ‘27. He could picture the little black-and-white plane on the cover of a stack of unsold newspapers on his kitchen counter. There was a Luftwaffe B-2 Blitz that made his skin crawl, even if he couldn’t put a finger on  _ why. _

It was the space stuff that really got to him, though. It was like every dime novel his sticky fingers had ever touched had come to life before his eyes, which he had to fucking dry on his own collar as he exited a mini-film screening of the moon landing on the second floor. 

_ We went to the fucking moon.  _

He pulled out the museum guide and jotted notes into the margins with a pen that had already been in the pocket of his stolen jacket. He wasn’t sure what compelled him to do it – to actually learn about this century like he might someday be part of it – but he wrote it anyway. 

_ Moon landing. 1969. Nifty. _

Even seeing his own handwriting stirred something in him. Letter-writing, he remembered. To… to… 

And then he couldn’t avoid it anymore. He took the stairs two at a time (no elevators, he was done with boxy, claustrophobic machines for the rest of his goddamned life) and pushed toward the big black letters.

 

**CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE LIVING LEGEND AND SYMBOL OF COURAGE**

 

Fucking hell. He took a deep, centering breath. Might as well find out if the man on the bridge – the man whose face he pummeled in  _ three days ago  _ – was onto something.

He wondered off-handedly how the man’s injuries were healing. It wasn’t great for the whole breathing situation.

He did not like the exhibit. For one thing, it was overwhelmingly interactive, with flashing lights and video screens and voices that started yapping at you as soon as you passed a hidden motion sensor. He’d been awake for over 72 hours, full of caffeine in a futile attempt to stave off whatever withdrawals he was experiencing from HYDRA’s cocktail of drugs, and loud noises and crowds made him anxious. It was a lot of stimuli for a jumpy brainwashed maybe-ex assassin at 10 am.

He hadn’t killed the scientists in the bank vault, after all. Yeah.  _ Maybe-ex assassin _ , he landed on comfortably.

But he still wished he had his knives.

But all of that had nothing on the real reason he hated the  _ Captain America  _ exhibit, and that was because the second he walked in, he knew it was the truth.

After being spoon-fed lies for the last seventy-odd years, the truth made his eyes prickle, his face hot.  _ The Fist of HYDRA does not cry. _ How many times had Zola, and then Pierce, told him that?

He eyed a panel of old World War II footage of the Howling Commandos (another phrase he etched into the margins of his brochure) and spotted his own mug, its eyes crinkling at the corners and a cheeky grin spreading across the young, clean face. The Winter Soldier didn’t cry. But this… this  _ Bucky _ person. He used to laugh.

He felt his own cheek with the calloused palm of his right hand. He felt the scruff, and the dirt, but also the ghosts of those laughter lines, the crinkled eyes, the grin.

It was… him.

He read everything in the exhibit hungrily, twice, though he set his face so as to not betray the fact that he was entranced, that his entire world was spilling upside down. It was disconcerting how everyone around him continued going about their business, like everything hadn’t changed. People –  _ families _ – milled past him without second thought, seeing neither world-famous assassin nor world-famous KIA military hero. Anonymity. Blending in. These were things he could handle.

But watching children as they jumped and squealed, running about with plastic Captain America shields? That did something to his navel in a warm, unfamiliar way. The Winter Soldier could never be warm. He was not allowed. He was only frozen, or working, or scaldingly hot from the end of a–

“NO!  _ I  _ want to be Bucky this time! You always get to be him!” screeched one of the playing children as she ran out and directly into his legs. The flimsy thing said, “ _ whoaaa _ ” around a laugh, spun for a second, and tore off in the other direction. For the briefest of seconds, the mother put her hand on his shoulder – the bad one, though she didn’t seem to notice it was made of metal when she said, “So sorry about that, sir,” and chased after the kids in that distinct, motherly, exasperated jog that hadn’t changed since ‘27.

He thought:  _ When is it  _ my  _ turn to be Bucky? _

The ghost of the mother’s touch tickled his shoulder all day like an old friend.

He left the museum without any profound thoughts or plans. It was  _ him _ , he knew that much. That was his face in there. Born in Indiana, raised in Brooklyn. This body had done all of those things – got captured at Azzano, joined the Howling Commandos, made jokes with Captain America that he couldn’t remember but must’ve been pretty good the way they both howled with laughter in the videos. He tried to read his own lips one-hundred times, trying desperately to see what was so funny. There was a part of him that almost-remembered, like deja vu. And then it was gone.

But it felt less like  _ him  _ him and more like adopting a dog at the pound, the pimply teenage girl at the register giving him a brief background on the mutt’s previous owner. “They called him Fox and he wasn’t allowed on the furniture,” she might say, and he would nod like it mattered, but he already knew he would call him Spot and let him sleep in his bed. 

It was like wearing borrowed skin.

It was like leasing an apartment, just subletting it for the summer, except the last tenant was still moving his things out and the contract actually lasted indefinitely but he forgot all his furniture and had nothing to decorate with.

He liked knowing either way, though. He liked that the man on the bridge had told him the truth. He valued truth more than anything in the world right now.

Hungry for more of it, he popped into the nearest department store and bought a journal with the stolen credit card from the other pocket of the stolen jacket. He only felt a little bad about the theft. Sins were relative, he justified. He also bought a yogurt – not eating solid food for decades and having no sense of taste anymore had done a number on his GI tract, which he’d already learned the hard way, but  _ Christ  _ he was starving. A few more blocks down, he bought himself a new computer. A ‘laptop.’ He’d seen them before, but never had one of his own and certainly didn’t have the faintest clue of how it worked. But the museum suggested he used to be a quick learner, so he hoped for the best.

Satisfied, he fetched his duffel from where he’d stashed it between a mailbox and a dumpster, double-checked the contents (guns, knives, the bag of Doritos that made him sick, and a lighter) because he was a paranoid son-of-a-bitch.

He froze.  _ Was  _ he a son of a bitch?

_ Ma? _

Recognizing a door best kept closed, he shook his head and marched back into the bustle of Washington, D.C. with only one goal in mind: finding somewhere to sleep.

 

\---

 

The future was funny. People agreed to let total strangers they found on their cell phones pick them up and drive them around. You could find almost anyone online. Someone to walk your dog. Someone to buy your useless shit. Someone to buy a celebrity’s actual human shit. It was wild.

He couldn’t complain, though, because he used the AirBnB website to find housing for the next three days. That was as long as he was willing to risk staying in D.C. As soon as the man from the Helicarrier –  _ Steve _ , he forced himself to correct – was out of the hospital, which some foreign part of him knew would be sooner rather than later, surely he would be looking for him. Besides, the AirBnB thing was honest. Well, mostly. Stolen money, but at least he wasn’t breaking and entering.

He avoided the Metro like the plague – he’d already made that mistake once, sweating bullets and re-living the icy, unbreathable cold of his tank, his chair, as the metal tube rocketed him through underground tunnels – and instead walked all the way to the apartment in Georgetown, duffel slung over his bad shoulder.

His first thought when he let himself in was that it was too cutesy for him, but his sister would’ve liked it. He’d had to sit down, rocking back and forth, until the sky was dark. 

A sister.

He opened the laptop and looked it up. It took a few tries. He had trouble understanding these ‘search engines.'

Finally, he typed it in, slow and shaky and using the backspace after practically every other letter.

_ Bucky Barnes. Sister. _

Something that called itself  _ Wikipedia  _ became his best friend. He devoured the words on the page, reading about a Rebecca Barnes-Proctor. Proctor… it sounded vaguely familiar. He clicked on the name, which transported him to a whole new page and made him a little dizzy. He started reading an interview from her in an old  _ Life  _ magazine from 1965.

Groovy.

He let himself go down the rabbit hole for a few hours, scouring the Internet. Eventually and anticlimactically, he released his drawn limbs, aching from the hours of unconscious tension, and unfolded himself from the floor. It was not glamorous. He showered, though it took him forever to figure out how to turn the damn water on, these yuppies. He ate his yogurt, and his stomach hurt, and he crawled his way to the bathroom to get sick a little while later. Finally, exhausted, he pulled out the Moleskine notebook and laid it on the glass kitchen table. This was where he would keep his truth.

He was stumped by the first page. In beautiful script that even a brainwashed assassin could appreciate read the words, “ _ This Journal Belongs To:” _ There was a long line beneath it, waiting, patiently, for a name.

A name. Such a subtle, human thing. His flesh-and-blood hand, holding the pen, shook. The metal one, of course, was inhumanly steady. Sniper steady, as always.

He sat there for thirty minutes, staring at the page. And then, in loopy writing that could only belong to him, he wrote:

 

_ James Buchanan Barnes _

 

\---   
  


**Text mesasge  
** **From: Natty Light <3  
** **Today, 1:01 am  
** Okay I feel like I’m crazy.

**1:01 am  
** But you know how Hill has me tracking  
any signs of the Winter Soldier online

**1:01 am  
** /Barnes

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:03 am  
** y r u awake????

 

**From: Natty Light <3  
** **1:04 am  
** See above ^

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:07 am  
** Ok ok yes, Hill’s project, you’re a computer science wizard, and  
you’re awake because…?

 

**From: Natty Light <3  
** **1:08 am  
** Okay, so I have all these alerts set up to trace  
him if he shows up online. Certain search words,  
websites, you know. And of course I keep tabs   
on things like Reddit posts about Avengers, etc etc. 

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:10 am  
** ???

 

**From: Natty Light <3  
** **1:10 am  
** Basically I get notified if someone googles  
‘how to kill Iron Man’

**1:11 am  
** THE POINT is that I found this little Twitter   
account with zero followers and all it does is Tweet  
“steve” like four times a week, just at random times.  
And like, I know it’s probably got nothing to do with  
*our* Steve (the VPN syncs to Bucharest) but still. I just.  
It’s sort of sad? I don’t know. 

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:13 am  
** U find weird shit on the internet

**1:13 am  
** Go watch cat videos and porn like the rest of us

 

**From: Natty Light <3  
** **1:15 am  
** Ugh what do I *see* in you

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:16 am  
** Charm, wit, big muscles, great taste in coffee…

**1:16 am  
** Other *big* things ;)

 

**From: Natty Light <3  
** **1:17 am  
** Am I still Natty Light in your contacts?

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:17 am  
** …

 

**From: NATASHA RUINS EVERYTHING  
** **1:19 am  
** That’s what I thought lol. Goodnight Clint.

 

**From: Barton  
** **1:20 am  
** :(

 

**From: NATASHA RUINS EVERYTHING  
** **1:26 am  
** :* muah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long passage is from Ayn Rand's "Anthem," a philosophy I don’t necessarily agree with but a passage that fit well.


	11. Go Big or Go Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick thing worth noting: I don't condone Steve's sweeping generalizations, or use of derogatory slang toward German folk. (This goes for the mild sexism and intense anti-semitism that plagues this story, btw). It was World War II; this is a period-piece. But at the end of the day, we all need to see the world a little more nuanced than this to find peace.
> 
> Ok, I'll stop preaching. Read on <3

_ Steve  
_ November 7, 1943

 

The fever spiked, and Steve’s eyes rolled a little in his head.

“There, there, honey,” came the raspy voice of Marley, his friend from the USO that he’d met back at Basic, aka the patron saint of the perpetually ill and constantly in denial, apparently. She was smoking a cigarette above him in the dim light, perched on a wooden stool at his bedside in the infirmary. He’d woken there after he’d collapsed. Her fingers moved methodically through his hair.

“The 107th, Bucky, are they–” Steve asked suddenly, heartbeat skyrocketing.

“Safe,” she finished patiently. He must have leapt up like this a hundred times. “You did good, Stevie.” 

He beamed at the pet name and lie back down. She gave him some water. His eyelids fluttered like he couldn’t stay awake.

“Knock, knock,” came a distinctly British accent from outside the tent flaps. Even through his fever, Steve recognized Peggy’s voice instantly. He looked over at Marley for a reaction, but she was gone,  _ poof _ , and Steve realized his fever was worse than he’d thought.

Then he looked down at his chest – skinny, each rib poking out as if to prove it was there – and noticed that his dog tags had changed. It wasn’t two  _ STEVEN G ROGERS  _ tags staring up at him. One of ‘em read,  _ JAMES B BARNES.  _ Huh. He quickly pulled the sheets of the cot up to his collar bone to hide the tags.

He smiled at no one in particular.

“Come in,” he called, remembering Peggy and coughing at the effort.

“Steven, how are you? ” Peggy asked in a rush; she looked frazzled for what had to be the first time in her life.

“I’m peachy keen, ma’am.”

“Oh, Steven.” Peggy picked up where imaginary-Marley left off, her slim fingers suddenly in his hair, until she seemed to think better of it and retreated. Steve had mixed feelings about it; he yearned for touch, but it was becoming clearer and clearer to him whose touch he really craved. Looking like she was thinking the same thing, Peggy patted down her skirt and cleared her throat, all-business. “I have someone here who’d like to meet you,  _ Captain _ .” He thought she might be a little irked at him increasing his own rank completely arbitrarily. To that, he thought: fair. It was ten times as hard for a woman to climb this ladder as it was a man, and here he was, just  _ declaring  _ himself a captain and everyone jumping on board. Oops.

The tent flap opened again to reveal a tall, gangly-looking man with a dark beard and round glasses. He smiled with his lips pressed together, showing no teeth, and looked to be at least forty with the beginnings of wrinkles around his eyes. 

“Hello,” the man said, waving awkwardly with his hand still at hip level. Steve felt a prickle ride over his skin the minute the man spoke, the hair on his arms standing up – and not from the fever. The man’s accent was distinctly German, and Steve’s body went rigid; his eyes narrowed.

“He is a refugee,” Peggy said sternly, reading him like a book and feeling the hostility radiating off of him. She even went as far as to put her arm in front of the man as if to shield him from tiny, fuming, bedridden Steve Rogers. “This is Dr. Erskine, an estranged German scientist who has already given the U.S. military several helpful details.” She gave Steve a pointed look.

“Like what?”

“Like the coordinates of the HYDRA base at Kreischberg,” she snapped. Steve closed his mouth, and rightly so.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the doctor said, disregarding Steve’s obvious distrust. Steve tried not to cringe this time, but the Kraut still made him nervous, especially after his latest stunt. His people had just shackled Bucky to an operating table.  _ Awake.  _ They’d earned a little distrust.

“Sure.”

“Go ahead, Doctor. Tell him your proposal,” Peggy nudged.

Dr. Erskine looked around, peered over his glasses, then began. “After witnessing your selflessness and heroism in the last few days, Agent Carter and I have a proposition for you, Steve Rogers. In my labs, I have created a serum that I believe – how do I say? –  _ amplifies  _ a man. Takes that which is good and makes great. We believe this serum will create an army of super soldiers ready to beat the Nazis and end this war and terrible loss of human life. You have demonstrated both altruistic prowess as well as personal need. Your body falls ill, sir. It struggles to keep up in these harsh conditions even when your mind is strong. We have a good faith belief that the serum can and will change that.”

_ What the what? _

“This ever been done before?” Steve asked after a long silence, feeling skeptical and blinking up at the doctor. Chills ran down his legs. But that might just be the fever.

Peggy and Erskine looked at each other.

“Sort of,” Dr. Erskine said at the same time Peggy blurted, “Not exactly, Steven.”

Comforting.

“Dr. Erskine was compelled against his will to work for a man–” Peggy began.

“A soulless man, if you can even call him that,” Erskine interjected to Peggy’s chagrin.

“A  _ man _ ,” she continued, clearly not in the mood to be interrupted, “named Johann Schmidt. He is leading the HYDRA faction of the Nazi Party and is an… _ enhanced  _ human himself. But he was impatient. He initiated the transformation before it was ready. He…he has paid for his mistake,” she finished cryptically.

“So he survived the whaddyacallit?” Steve asked.

“The Super Soldier Serum.  _ Übermensch _ , in German. And yes, he lived, if you can call it that,” the doctor answered. He wrung his hands and looked to Peggy for help.

“Like Dr. Erskine said, the serum amplifies the man. Good becomes great. And bad…”

“Becomes worse,” Steve concluded, nodding. “Johann Schmidt. I heard his name. At the warehouse in Kreischberg. He was running…” Then he caught himself. “Wait. What does this have to do with me?”

To that, Peggy smiled like the war was over. “Oh, Steven,” was all she said, for the second time that night. 

“You saved the men in Kreischberg, Private. You went on a solo suicide mission that you fully did not intend to return from for the sole purpose of having to  _ try.  _ You defied orders–” Steve quirked an eyebrow. “–for doing the right thing. You are a man of your word, and a good friend. You know what it is like to be small, so you will have the necessary humility to be mighty. Because of this, we think you should be the first recipient of the serum, in a classified national program known as Project Rebirth.”

He stared at the doctor impolitely with his mouth slack and a look like is-someone-gonna-take-this-guy-back-to-the-looney-bin? on his face. They had it all wrong. He was just a… a kid from Brooklyn with an aptitude for getting his nose broken and a heart murmur. He got into this war by cheating the system and his greatest accomplishment to date involved deliberately disobeying orders. And yet it was  _ his  _ frail, feverish body that the doctor was subtly studying as if Steve had already agreed to this whole crazy plot.

“What  _ exactly _ will this serum do to me?”

“Your insides will match your exterior. A man–” Peggy glared at Erskine, who amended “– _ or woman _ of good character will become strong, stronger than the ordinary man. And fast. A taller figure, more built frame. Straight teeth. An enhanced healing factor and metabolism. The ability to march across enemy territory and return. To take twice the lead of the average soldier and still continue on. You’ll have 20/20 vision, you’ll–”

“Live to see thirty?” Steve whispered.

What could he say? His dreams in this wide world were not big or lofty.

“And beyond.”

“Can I have a minute alone with Pegs – er, Agent Carter?” Steve asked. The doctor smiled – it was the first time Steve liked him.

“Of course.”

Erskine disappeared, and Peggy looked at him worriedly, like a mother about to fuss over a crooked tie or out-of-place hair before church.

“What’s the catch?” he asked, not beating around the bush, and then coughed as if to emphasize what was at stake.

She sighed like she’d been waiting for this. “There’s no  _ catch _ . I mean, it  _ could  _ fail. Or be too much for your body to handle. You could die, Steven. That is a very real possibility. But I also know it’s something you’re not afraid of.” She looked sad. He wanted to throw an arm over her shoulder.

“I could die any day of the week that ends in ‘y,’ Pegs. This is war. And I’m – me.”

“Well, that’s the other thing,” she said, breaking his gaze. Finally, the catch. “This war needs to go on without you, Steve. If you’re like this, with the fever and all, you can’t – you won’t make it. I’m not going to – I won’t bury you here because you were too stubborn to go home and receive proper medical attention.” Peggy wiped away tears now, and Steve wracked his brain for something Bucky might’ve said to him about consoling a lady. He settled for a soft  _ shhh _ ing noise like his ma used to make.

“No one’s burying anyone,” Steve said with confidence, ever the optimist. Peggy looked at him sadly, like someone who wanted very desperately to believe what she was being told. She pursed her lips and tilted her head. He felt like a dog about to be put down at the pound. “Now tell me, Pegs. Is it serum or ship home? Are those my options?”

She nodded, crying again. It got so bad that she buried her face in her hands, shoulders jerking with her sobs.

“Aw, Pegs, don’t – don’t cry.” But it was futile. The fact of the matter was that Peggy always had to be a strong woman who didn’t cry like all these crabby men decorated in stars and bars expected her to, and it was catching up to her. And besides, they both knew the truth.

Go home or have a chance at being a real soldier? They might as well have forged his signature and skipped the meeting.

Finally, the crying had gone on too long. Steve squirmed his way out of the cocoon of blankets that someone – probably Dolly – had stuffed him into to break the fever and made his way over to Peggy, finally getting his bony arms around her shaking frame. “I’m sorry, Pegs. I’m sorry.”

She leaned into him, close, her perfect face blotchy and her eyelashes stuck together with tears. A woman who had seen too much. 

“I feel like this is my fault,” she whispered against him. “I should never have signed those papers, Steven. What kind of choice have I given you? Suicide in all directions. I know you of all people is up for the task, but… what have I done?”

“I would’ve died not being able to see this war,” he said honestly against her shoulder. “And the 107th would have, too.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she said, finally giving up on the crying, releasing Steve, and wiping at the delicate skin under her eyes. Just like that, she was her professional, upstanding self – only the redness of her eyes would give her away to the most shrewd of inspectors. How did women  _ do  _ that? “I’m being foolish.”

“Not foolish,” Steve supplied, trying his best to validate her feelings – something he was sure Col. Phillips wasn’t excelling in. “You just give a damn. It’s what I love about you, Peggy.”

She did the sad sort of head tilt again, like Steve was a precious five-year-old who just offered to help with the dishes. He wondered if she’d ever stop looking at him like that.

“When do I have to decide?” Steve said, trying to break that look off her face and standing an arm’s length away from her now. It didn’t escape his notice the way he had to tilt his head to look  _ up  _ to her. To think, they could undo that. He could be  _ tall.  _ Strong. What sick kid wouldn’t start watering at the mouth for an opportunity like this?

“Tomorrow morning,” she said, all  _ Agent Carter  _ as the encounter became suddenly formal. Steve rubbed the back of his neck, nodding like he was accepting the information. “There’s a troopship leaving for New York tomorrow afternoon with wounded soldiers. There’s a spot on it for you, Steven. And my professional opinion? Take the ticket home while you’re still alive to do it.”

Home. Their apartment, which Bernie was hopefully keeping open for their return. It was bad luck to redo a soldier’s room. He tried to think of other details, but they were hard to picture in the humid medic tent on the Italian countryside. Florida oranges. Selling the paper. Central Park. But it would be different, now. Brooklyn, but with a decorated soldier’s pension. He could afford the medications. Maybe even art school, what with the GI Bill and all. That meant a  _ house. _ A whole house! What would he even fill it with? He entertained it all for a minute, in a sort of dreamy way. Try to meet a nice girl, settle down. The yard, the kids. Little league in the summers. Chewing gum and the National Anthem and fireworks on the Fourth of July. 

But he wouldn’t do any of it without Bucky.

“And your personal opinion?” he prodded, lost in thought.

Peggy exhaled and straightened her skirt again, looking away from him. “I think you’re the only man for the job,” she said.

“I’m – I’m gonna go,” he said curtly, nodding to himself even as he made up his mind. “I gotta talk to Bucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an aside, I think this chapter title is the most clever thing in this whole fic lol


	12. Battle of the Triskelion

_ The asset   
_ January 12, 2014

 

The asset’s facial recognition had been wrong before.

There was the girl in Prague with the short hair. Freckles. Mission target: identified. Metal fist through torso at 17.3 mph. Aorta: crushed. Final glance at face for confirmation of fatality. Realization: miscalculation. Mission error.   
  
Wrong target.

_ Wrong. Target. _

After the mistake, the asset had curled up in an abandoned factory outside the city for two days. The only soothing mechanism it could find was in rocking back and forth, arms around its knees. Itching everywhere. Likely cause: opiate withdrawal. Opiate acquisition: too labor intensive. Needed to conserve energy reserves to complete mission. Caloric intake: low. Excessive water leakage from eyes: undesirable. Impaired vision and dehydration.

A new voice had appeared in the asset’s head after that:  _ I don’t wanna _ , it pleaded. Over and over. The asset told it to be quiet. They had work to do. Without ceremony or signal, it rose from the slick of its own piss and bile, assassinated the correct woman –a naive young journalist on HYDRA’s scent – and returned to base. Late. The asset paid well for its mistake.

“Please. A Wipe.  _ Please _ ,” it had choked out as they gagged it and dragged it by the hair from where it bowed before them on its knees, shaking. Anything to get the facial-recognition-error-wrong-target’s face out from behind its eyelids. All those  _ freckles. _

“Can do,” Pierce had smirked, looking to its other handlers with a grin. “I told you he’d be begging for it,” he’d laughed.

Facial recognition had been wrong before. 

So the man standing before it couldn’t be Rogers-comma-Steve, alias Captain America. HYDRA had briefed it. Told it someone might  _ claim _ to be Rogers-comma-Steve, alias Captain America. The man on the bridge, they’d called him, though the asset did not remember this man nor a bridge. The asset knew a Steve Rogers, once. He permeated its shaky memory like water making its way through sand. The memories were… shiny,  _ other _ , and the asset wasn’t even sure they were real. Steve Rogers, the Steve it catalogued away, had been… small, bearded, gritty. This man was huge, super-powered and clean-shaven. A real gym rat. Besides, Steve was dead, they told the asset. Showed it the newspaper clippings when it shook its heavy head, dark hair swishing. The headlines flashed like a running news banner in front of its face. All the time.

_ Captain America Meets Icy End _

_ Revered American Hero Lost in Arctic Circle _

_ America’s Sweetheart Steve Rogers Makes Ultimate Sacrifice _

The Soviets had told it the same. As had Pierce and the Americans. And that was that. The bloodied star-spangled man in front of it was trying to deceive it – he didn’t want to see HYDRA’s utopian vision come to fruition. Bottom line: the man was  _ lying.  _ And he was  _ in the way.  _

“Aw, c’mon, Buck,” the imposter, _ the mission _ , sighed. Quiet, like he was talking more to himself than to the asset. “I don’t want to do this.”

The asset responded with deadly gunfire, as the asset was trained to do when met with something undesirable. Like an enemy. 

Or a friend.

But a small voice in the back of its head, the same one that pleaded,  _ I don’t wanna _ like a broken record, asked:  _ Was there something familiar about the stars-and-stripes suit? _ Meanwhile, its knife sliced the mission’s cheek.  _ So much violence for the middle of the afternoon _ . It squashed down the voice. This was business.

The mission jumped up. His right fist swung out to meet the asset’s metal one. Big mistake, pal. The metal arm was 36% stronger than the mission’s, even though the mission was overall stronger. Biceps 16.8% larger, 28% higher healing factor, 12% faster. Statistically, the mission should have had the asset on its back in seventeen minutes and fifty-one seconds.

But the mission was also losing. Fighting at mere 38% capacity.

_ Why? _

Charred air filled the asset’s lungs. Fire. The helicarrier was burning. Its eyes stung and prickled as the smoke swirled around it, but it kept them pried open and straining. No time to lose track of the mission. It swallowed down the stink of melted plastic and burning metal, tongue gone dry, and tried to ignore that it was all  _ too much too much too much. _ The asset was outmatched. Conclusion: HYDRA hadn’t anticipated its return to base. They expected it to  _ lose. _ A price to pay for the good of society. A sacrifice. It wasn’t like a weapon could retire.

With astonishing clarity, the asset realized it didn’t want to go back. Maybe the mission could exterminate it.

That was, if the mission would fucking fight back.

“You know me,” the mission cried. 

_ Know me know me no me no me _ . The words ricocheted inside the asset’s head. Distracted by the puncture wounds of his words, the asset missed the large chunk of  _ something  _ that fell from the ceiling of the on-fire Helicarrier onto its body. Left knee sprained on impact. Immense discomfort in the left shoulder as well. Probable fracture. The pain was negligible, but it split something in the asset, opened up the mental space for the little voice to claw its way back up.

_ New Year’s Eve, 1936. _

_ The click of a camera. _

вырваться из него. _ Snap out of it. _

“NO I DON’T!” the asset howled back, even as the mission  _ freed it  _ from the collapsed metal that had trapped it like a rat.  __ It squirmed its way out as mission-maybe-Captain-America released it. Saved the asset, even as the asset lunged for his throat.

The asset just needed to aggravate the mission. Then he might kill it, free it from this haunted life, this endless purgatory. Its boots clattered against debris on the hellish firescape of an aircraft; the entire back of the jet was blown open. Hair blew in its face, caught on its wet lips. It moved on the mission, fast, if it could just get its fist…

The mission dodged it but wouldn’t come after it. They danced like that. Then he opened his big mouth again.

“Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life,” he said around a mouthful of blood, then spat.

_ Stevie, you coughing up blood again? I told ya to holler if that was happenin’. We gotta get you to the clinic, and don’t you say a damn word about it. _

Facial recognition had been wrong before. Facial recognition had been wrong before.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

_ No no no no no _

“SHUT UP!” it roared, throwing the nearest hunk of metal at Steve’s head. At  _ the mission’s  _ head. Not Steve not Steve. It couldn’t be. HYDRA hadn’t lied to it. They wouldn’t lie to it. It was their greatest asset. They told it. They  _ praised  _ it. All those deaths, all those kills, the woman with the freckles, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. 

The asset had been so good for them.

Before the asset could get in another hit, the mission was talking again. Mouthy asshole.

“I’m not gonna fight you,” the maybe-mission said with conviction that made the hairs on the back of the asset’s neck stand up. “You’re my friend.”

_ The asset has no friends _ , Rumlow had told him, hot, stinking breath ghosting over his face.  _ You got that, sport?  _ And then he’d shoved him into the chair and let the shackles lock themselves into place.

Then, without warning, the mission  _ dropped its weapon  _ and the metallic shield  _ clanged  _ as it fell through a gaping hole in the bottom of the Helicarrier, where it pinballed until it splashed down into the Potomac. The asset tried to calculate the reasoning behind the decision– 

_ Dead weight? Damaged weapon? Injured hand? Preference for hand-to-hand combat? Use of different weapon? _

–but none of them added up. It couldn’t make sense of the mission dropping its shield. 

It changed the air as the two of them – somehow the only two left in the world – mournfully watched its descent. The mission’s weapon. A surrender, then. The Winter Soldier hated unarmed targets. The freckles. His first kill on that Austrian plain in ‘43…

Its.  _ Its  _ first kill. There was no  _ he.  _ And there was no kill on an  _ Austrian plain. _ Whatever the body’s previous owner had done had nothing to do with the asset. They had emptied it. Started anew. The shiny memories that cracked its vision were just  _ glitches.  _ It had been the first Winter Soldier, after all. 

For the first time, the asset looked into the eyes of the man it was ordered to kill.

NO.

No.

 

no

The mission had surrendered his weapon. He wouldn’t kill the asset. So that was it, then. The asset could never be free; the mission had made damn well sure of that. He could never escape. The one target with a crying chance at finally bringing down the faceless killer, the soulless assassin, heartless shell of a monster and scourge of humanity, the legendary ghost story itself, and he’d fucking given up. It was too easy. It was so fucking easy to kill this guy. What a fucking joke. It made a red-hot anger beat through it.  _ Fine.  _ The asset snarled, feeling the hatred anew and letting it drive each loaded step forward.

“You’re my mission,” it spat mercilessly, and the mission crumpled beneath its terrible fists, blow after blow,  _ how dare you, how dare you leave me, how dare you let me fall from the train, how dare you not finish this yourself, Rogers, you fucking coward– _

“Then finish it,” the mission slurred, broken beneath the asset’s hands, like he was reading its mind. Like he  _ knew.  _ Like they remembered the same story. “‘Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” 

The asset heard every word perfectly, even with the world collapsing around it and the roar of the broken engine in its ears. And it thought: wait. And the little voice said:  _ Stevie.  _ And its fists paused for .3 milliseconds and it felt a jerky relief, like a seventy-year itch had finally been scratched–

–and then something snapped, because the asset had miscalculated their weight, and the mission was plummeting and swallowed up by the river, and James Buchanan Barnes dove after him, because he knew what it was like to have no one come looking for you.

The mission – Steve? Steve-Captain-America? – was a heap of dead weight, heavy even to the asset’s enhanced musculature. Facial recognition had been wrong before, but the asset –  _ he _ – saw it now. The ugly but lovable beak of a nose. The jawline. The pucker of the lips. Like this, he looked recognizable – more like  _ Steve _ with the bloody nose and split lip. Even the wheezing breath sounded like an old song he’d forgotten the words to. It was him. Steve Rogers, sans icy death. HYDRA had lied. They had lied to him. Something had happened. Steve Rogers was  _ alive.  _ And they had prepared to lose him today. They had sent him into a battle he wasn’t meant to walk away from. They had  _ used him. _

Well fuck that horse shit.

Fuck it all. The body it – he – laid in the sand. The stupid red-white-and-blue suit constricted the mission’s lungs. He was breathing, but badly. Broken ribs. The asset’s fault.

Little time. He unbuckled the front of the mission’s suit, found the well-hidden zippers, opened him up. He breathed more deeply. Water dribbled from his slack mouth, which was a good sign. He breathed. His big heart bragged in his big chest – the asset could hear its beats: sixty-two per minute. Alive. He coughed; then he gurgled. The asset turned him on his side.

Then he heard the crunch of metal on gravel. The Iron Man.

Odds mission-Steve would live: 96%. It was time to leave.

The asset hid in a bush nearby. Just to eavesdrop in case the others had useful information about HYDRA’s whereabouts. And to make sure they weren’t on his scent. To gather intelligence. Those are the  _ only reasons _ he waited behind the bush, okay?

Whatever.

The mission’s friends found him quickly. Sam-with-the-wings said, “Jesus Christ,” which was a reference even the asset understood. Sam-with-the-wings appeared to have medical experience. He took mission-Steve’s pulse and the asset did not shout,  _ it’s sixty-two beats per minute, don’t worry Sam-with-the-Wings.  _

The Iron Man sighed like he cared a lot, but said casually, “Have you tried turning him off and back on again?” His hands were on his hips.

The familiar redhead with the shocks punched the Iron Man. The asset approved.

With confirmation that the Steve-mission was in good hands, it was time to split. The asset slunk off in an unknown direction with a lot to think about and maybe Steve Rogers’ blood on his hands.

  
  



	13. It'll Match Your Eyes

_ Steve  
_ November 7, 1943

 

If Steve was being  _ honest _ , he’d already made up his mind. But instead, he was lying to himself and pretending Bucky had a say in the matter, and that was how all this trouble had started in the first place.

After the meeting with Peggy and the strange German doctor, Steve had shoved his hands in his pockets and gone for a stroll. Well, he’d had to sneak out of the infirmary tent at a pretty brisk jog to avoid one of Dolly’s lectures, but once he’d been well on his way, he’d gone for a stroll. They hadn’t given him much time to think; they needed a decision by morning. 

He needed to make a pro and con list. Clear his head. And his sinuses, for that matter.

Pros of letting Doc experiment on him:

  1. His health, first and foremost. Between the arrhythmia, scoliosis, bad ear, and the asthma… he wasn’t exactly slated to grow old on a porch swing somewhere
  2. His body was already feeble. If the serum failed, his was the life to sacrifice. He wouldn’t be good for anything else in this war
  3. It would impress Peggy, which shouldn’t matter, he shouldn’t _care_ what she thinks
  4. It would be kinda neat, if it worked
  5. Someone might fucking take him seriously for once
  6. He might see the end of the war, might have a coupla kids in the yard, a dog, big apple trees…



_ Hold it _ , he thought.  _ You’re getting ahead of yourself. _

Cons:

  1. Could die
  2. Could die in vain
  3. Could turn into a vegetable, which would be depressing as hell
  4. Could hurt Bucky
  5. (and also Peggy)
  6. (but mostly Bucky)



Ah. And  _ there  _ were the heart palpitations. He’d been wondering when they’d make their awaited reappearance.

There was another con, too. One he couldn’t even think of in the privacy of his own mind without getting embarrassed by how dirty the thought was. But the truth was, something real and hot was blossoming between him and Bucky. Maybe it was love, maybe lust, maybe it was just the way friendship manifested when death was always around the corner. But it was  _ something _ , and it was theirs, and Steve wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet, no matter how sacreligious he felt with Bucky’s legs wrapped around him. If he wasn’t small anymore, if he couldn’t be…  _ mistaken  _ for a girl when Bucky squinted hard enough – would Bucky still like him? Still want him?

Then again, if he put a stop to all this maybe he’d be doing Bucky a favor. Bucky didn’t believe in hell, but Steve did. It didn’t seem right to damn a man’s soul for a few sloppy kisses in the medic tent. They were already damned as it were. 

But what else could he do? Peggy would send him home if he didn’t go through with it. He couldn’t leave Bucky over here alone. Not after he acquired that haunted stare post-capture that Bucky always thought Steve didn’t see. The Nazis had messed up Steve’s fella, and he couldn’t get his proper revenge in this body. He’d tried growing out his beard, but what was he thinking? A beard couldn’t hide the nerves or the fatigue, the cough or the shivering. He needed real muscle and sinew, clear sinuses and a working heart, to tear the Nazi scum limb from limb, piece by fucked up piece.

He knew he wasn’t made for this. He was no jock, no university-sweater-wearing chump. He was a mama’s boy. An artist. A… a  _ queer.  _ Bird bones with a soft, slow, lazy heart. He was made for offices and kitchen tables, lounge chairs and rainy days.

But like hell was he going home after all this bullshit. Like hell would Steven Grant Rogers give up so easily.

He nodded vigorously to himself and made his way in Bucky’s direction. In retrospect, he probably should have planned ahead what he was going to say.

“Not a bad angle,” Steve mused aloud, looking up the tree trunk at, well, Bucky’s ass. He was perched in the tree, rifle steady. First watch, Steve presumed. 

“Fuckin’ hell, don’t scare me like that,” Bucky whisper-yelled, but he didn’t  _ seem _ scared or jump or anything. His senses were good; sometimes too good. Better since that little scientist had made him his plaything, which was worrying. Then again, more than once, Steve’d caught him starting at something that wasn’t even there.

“Can we talk?” Steve called.

“Ain’t we talkin’ now?”

“Where I’m  _ not  _ barking up your tree?” Steve said, trying to be funny. Bucky laughed generously.

“Seems like a tall order,” Bucky replied, already jumping down from his viewpoint, landing noiselessly on the balls of his feet. It was eerie. Bucky moved like a ghost these days.

“What’d ya do with the first eight lives?” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow. Bucky just rubbed at his face with dirty hands – Steve could feel his mother, a true blue nurse if ever there was one, God rest her soul, cringing from beyond the grave. She was a real stickler about hand washing. Ironic, in the end.

Steve shook the thought.

“C’mon, spit it out. Phillips’ll have my ass if he sees me bein’ ignorant to the enemy. Why’d you bring me down here, champ?” Bucky said. 

“I need your opinion.”

“Stick with the Army green, it matches your eyes.”

Steve punched him. Then he regurgitated what Peggy and Erskine ( _ “The mole-lookin’ guy?” _ Bucky interrupted) had told him in the infirmary. He hoped he got all the details right. Concentrating through a fever wasn’t exactly Steve’s specialty. When he was finished, he looked up at Bucky. 

Bucky’s face was easy to read.

So were his lips.

“No.”

“Buck–”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. Are you crazy? Have you lost your goddamn marbles?” Bucky’s voice was rising, and they weren’t all that far from the foxholes.

“Shhhhh,  _ Buck! _ ”

“Don’t shush me, Rogers. This is the stupidest, most inbred idea you’ve ever had. And I watched you check the classifieds for jobs in goddamn  _ Jersey,  _ so that’s sayin’ somethin’.”

“It’s not stupid! It’s… experimental.”

“Reckless, you mean.”

“Bucky. They’re gonna send me home if I don’t at least try for the upgrade.”

“‘ _ The upgrade,’” _ Bucky scoffed, spitting in the dirt. “That what they’re callin’ this? It’s something outta a horror film. It’s what the Nazis are doing in their damn  _ camps. _ ”

“It’s not!”

“How the  _ hell _ ,” Bucky started, pausing with the most wicked, repulsed look on his face, “would  _ you  _ know?” 

Steve went cold all over.

“Bucky,” Steve tried, recuperating. He’d expected Bucky not to love the idea; he hadn’t anticipated the visceral reaction, the too many teeth, the snarling. He’d hit a nerve. No, he’d put a knife in a nerve and twisted it. But he had to make Bucky  _ see.  _ “My heart is in this war. I want to do my part. Like you, Buck. But my actual heart is  _ beats away _ from collapsing on itself. Even if Pegs sends me home, there’s no way I’m gonna make it all the way back to Brooklyn or be able to afford my pills if I do. The serum’s a chance at fixing all that!”

Bucky stepped forward then, the hard lines of his face crumbling. Steve thought he might cry. Instead, he lifted a hand to Steve’s hair, grown out since the last buzz.

“You’re already perfect, Stevie,” he said, and wouldn’t look away. The steel in his gaze grounded Steve to the spot. “Go  _ home. _ ” The tears in Bucky’s eyes caught the moonlight, and Steve caught them like a punch to the gut.

“Don’t you want me to be healthy?” Steve whispered, close now, his own eyes watering embarrassingly.

“I want you  _ alive _ , Private.” Bucky brushed a finger over Steve’s lips like he couldn’t help himself. Under his gentle touch, Steve shuddered.

And then Bucky leaned down and touched his lips softly to Steve’s – a bold move, considering they were outdoors and all – with both hands now cupping Steve’s bony face on either side. There was just the gentle pressure of Bucky’s soft, slightly wet lips against Steve’s chapped ones, moving together. It was only when Steve felt the wet trickle on his cheek and in his beard that he knew Bucky was crying.

“Troubled as it is, I really do love you, Stevie. And if it’s anything like what they did to me,” Bucky started, speaking of his torture aloud to Steve for the first time. “I need you to run full-tilt in the other direction.” He kissed him again, harder and more urgently this time. Steve pressed up against him, getting up on his tiptoes. He wanted to enjoy it, because Bucky wouldn’t like what he had to say next.

“And leave you alone in this war?”   


“I’ll survive.” The way he said it, it was like even Bucky didn’t believe what he was saying.

“You wouldn’t have,” Steve pointed out daringly. “Not if I wasn’t around.”

“You’ve saved me more than once,” Bucky said, pulling back now to look at him again. “Now do it again. Take the package, and go back to Brooklyn.”

“You know I can’t.”   
  
“Why the fuck do you think you get to die on me, Rogers? What in the hell have I done in these last twenty-some years to make you think you could just risk your whole damned life like this? It’s dangerous, Steve. This is the stuff of  _ horror.  _ They’re gonna flip you around, charge your cells with toxic chemicals and radiation and what else? You really trust this German doctor?”

“It’s worth the risk.”

“Not to me.”

“Why do you get to decide all this, anyway?” Bucky accused. His anger was like a rollercoaster. Steve was having trouble keeping up.

“It’s my body. It’s my  _ life _ .”

“I didn’t nurse you back to health every goddamn winter for you to throw your life away like this! I think that gives me a say.”

“That was your choice. This is mine.”

“You’re just too dumb to run away from a fight,” Bucky said darkly, his eyes gone cold. They weren’t touching anymore. “Fine. Whatever. Kill yourself, then.”

“I’m not…”

“Save it,” Bucky sighed, weighing something. Finally, he said, “I’m off duty at 23:10. Wait for watch to change. Then come find me.”

With a curt nod, Steve stepped back and ran off to the bushes to hide, and wait.

***

At the end of Bucky’s watch, they walked back together to Steve’s tent; his tentmate was still in the infirmary, which was lucky for them.

“This serum,” Bucky said, right against Steve’s lips without pulling back at all. “It’ll cure you of… everything?”

Steve nodded and brought their lips back together, placing his long fingers on Bucky’s hips, which jerked forward.

They had never done this before. But tomorrow was too up in the air, the future too unsure, and want filled Steve’s belly, low and hot and needy. Steve had asked to be fucked. Bucky obliged, the words making his eyes go wild the minute they left Steve’s mouth. With a nervous feeling in his stomach, Bucky straddled Steve’s bony hips and slid himself across his cock until Steve was moaning (they used a clean sock to shut him up) and then used vaseline to lube himself and get up inside him. Steve rested his legs up on Bucky’s shoulders, spread wide for him. Bucky didn’t say much, his eyes grown sort of blown with lust, his mouth slack like he couldn’t keep it closed. The cot squeaked. Their dog tags tangled together, made silvery noises like moonlight and sugar. Bucky kept swearing and moaning, losing himself completely as Steve felt something hot explode inside of him. Steve followed suit quickly, the  _ look  _ on Bucky’s face sending him screeching over the edge, and he knew in that moment that no girl could ever make him feel the way Bucky just had. Eventually Bucky regained control of himself, hands all over Steve as if he was remembering that he was touching him for the first time.

And maybe the last.

Steve didn’t want to think about it; not while he and Bucky were rubbing off, not when Bucky buttoned up his pants with a grimace, not when he left the tent with a solemn look back, like he was memorizing Steve’s features. Just in case.

“I’m gonna miss you being small,” Bucky blurted. “You don’t have to do this, Steve. You don’t.”

“You should really go now.” Bucky nodded, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Wiped the taste of Steve right off his pinkening lips. Steve pretended it didn’t bother him and rolled over in his cot, as if he would be able to sleep. As if tomorrow wouldn’t change everything.

***

_ Anthony Russo: We took a little bit of liberty – artistic license, if you will – during the filming of our Captain America movie. This scene especially. I hope you don’t mind, Steve! _

_ Joseph Russo: Yeah, this scene here – where Cap is asking his friends to go with him and blow up HYDRA and all, we fibbed the lines a little bit. Right, Cap? [laughter]. _

_ Steve Rogers: Yeah, yeah you guys changed it a little. Not too much, though. The stories always get it wrong. They always make it seem like Bucky followed me. But they get it wrong. It was me. I followed James Barnes into the jaws of death. _

  
Russo, Anthony and Joseph Russo.  _ Who was the real Captain America?  _ Film: Director’s Commentary. Warner Brothers Studios. 2013.


	14. Unbecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say this chapter qualifies as mild HTP. It's not too rough, but take care.

_ The Winter Soldier  
_ The meantime

 

Everything came back to hands.

Hands hands hands.

Seventy years’ worth of hands.

\---

First, the hands that saved him. Warm hands that came for him, dragged him through the snow. They were small hands – he would’ve thought they were Steve’s, once, but the hands that plowed his body through ice and stones indiscriminately were not gentle, yanking him by the collar unkindly, and besides, Steve’s hands were big now.

But he’d lost a lot of blood – what did he know?

Then the hands were buckling him, securing his dead weight as he went in and out of consciousness. He was being airlifted out, he thought, but no one was speaking to him, or speaking at all, really, and the hellish burning sensation in all his limbs devoured him.

\---

He came to on a silver table with the worst kind of  déjà vu that only a former POW could experience, thinking  _ I’ve been here before  _ and drinking in oxygen like he’d never breathe again. The table was stiff and cold and the curve of his back ached against the hard surface. He was paralyzed, legs unmoving as he lifted his head, gasping and scanning the room with panic. Where was he? And how the hell was he going to get out of here?

Would Steve come this time?

He looked over at his left arm and almost vomited – would have, if there was any food in him. The arm – the whole damn thing – was black and purple, utterly limp and sitting at an inhuman angle. Broken didn’t even begin to cover it. It was  _ dead.  _ He tried to think about how it could’ve happened, to remember something, anything, but everything was too foggy, too far away. All he knew was he was trapped in this body that was both alive and dead. A needle poked out of his right hand: drugs, surely. That was a bad sign. Once they got the drugs flowing, he knew he was fucked.

And then some guy who called himself Karpov strolled into the room in a white lab coat and Bucky thrashed against the constraints like a madman.  _ Steve.  _ Fuck not this again. As much as he thrashed with his torso, his legs didn’t budge. When he stared at them, the useless lumps, in confusion, the scientist smirked, moving closer in on him.

“Broken spine,” the Kraut said with a sickening smile. “We fix that for you. We take care of people. Heal people like you. Hail Hydra.” Then he mumbled some in German, and Bucky’s eyes prickled with tears and he wasn’t proud of it, but he begged him not to hurt him.  _ Please. Pleasepleaseplease. _

But the little scientist just grinned with excitement at his new plaything and clapped his hands together eagerly. A child. A child was going to have his way with what remained of James Buchanan Barnes, and there was no escape plan up his sleeve. He couldn’t even walk out of here if they undid his restraints. All he could hope was that Steve would come, and that it wouldn’t be too late when he did.

Of all the drugs pumping through him, anesthesia was not one of them. Bucky watched in horror as the scientist sawed off what remained of his left arm.

\---

Hands were undressing him.

There was a hand on his chest, cold to the touch. It yanked, and the dog tags around his neck snapped, and his neck bounced forward with the force of it.

_ “Wer bist du?”  _ sneered one of his handlers, reading the dog tags with amusement. Like his identity was a joke. Like it didn’t ever exist at all. But then he remembered… the dog tags… they weren’t…

“Give them back!” he yelled, strapped to their chair, one-armed now, sweating bullets and  _ not ready to give up the very last secret he had on Earth. _

_ Tsk tsk tsk,  _ went a handler – the only woman on their team that he’d met so far.  _ Met _ was a generous term, he scoffed. As if they’d had a proper introduction, a chat over a cup o’ joe. 

“You are a liar,” she said in English, looking down at the dog tags that he knew would say  _ Captain Steven Grant Rogers, 107th Inf Tactical, Catholic.  _ “Captain America,” she spat like it was a dirty word.

Christ. What could be more damning than having Captain America’s dog tags ‘round your neck in a Nazi torture chamber?

Actually, there was one thing more damning than having Captain America’s dog tags.

“And look at  _ this  _ one,” she sneered, turning to the second tag on his chain – his own. “The H is for Hebrew, no?”

Bucky closed his eyes. He’d been ready to die, but G-d, not like this.

The handlers – young, all of them, which was worse, somehow – whispered amongst themselves. He thought he heard something that sounded an awful lot like homosexual and cringed. His breathing spiked, his heart throbbing in his hurting chest. He felt the eerie presence of the phantom limb he wished to hold to himself. But there wasn’t a hand to hold.

The handlers called in Schmidt himself; Bucky’s mistake was to flinch at his presence. That earned him a whip to the face. These guys didn’t seem to plan on using him for much or keeping him around long, considering how carelessly they beat him.

“Captain America’s Jewish lover?” Schmidt said, almost gleefully. “He is a stain on this earth. Find out everything you can, test the serum, and… Doctor? When you are done, wipe him out of existence.”

\---

A new hand. The new hand looked like a robot. Cyborg, the novels would have written, if this was all just another science fiction and not a slice of his own waking nightmare. But the hand was strong. It listened to him. The asset, they called him.

\---

The serum healed the spinal cord injury. It healed the lashes, so they gave him more. Double. Triple. The metal hand clenched with pain every time, he could not help it, but he learned not to cry out. 

\---

Between kills, it was cold, and it dreamed. It did not tell its handlers of its dreams. But there were hands, small and cracked with half-bitten fingernails. The hands didn’t do much. They rested on his shoulder. Punched his arm in a friendly sort of way. Hugged his middle. Sometimes they drew pictures in charcoal, stories, like the dream-hands were trying to tell him something. They drew taxi cabs. Sometimes oranges.

He asked for an orange, once. They zapped him, so he lost his sense of taste, scar tissue forming over his tongue. They fed him through a tube, anyhow, but it was the principle of the thing. He never asked for anything else. He was just glad they didn’t cut out his tongue.

\---

Do not bite the hand that feeds.  _ Do not bite the hand that feeds. _

The other Winter Soldiers tried to bite the hand that fed. They were left to sleep for many years. He was always their favorite. He was  _ the  _ Winter Soldier. He had liked rescuing Karpov. He had liked being the favorite. He liked protecting people. It was hard-wired into him.

But sometimes, he too wanted to bite the hand that fed.

\---

A hand slipping the bite guard into its open mouth.

“Ready,  _ soldat? _ ” It had learned that this was a rhetorical question.

And then they were lighting it up.

\---

Switching hands. HYDRA didn’t want the asset anymore.

Had he failed? Were they mad at him? He could do better. He would do better.  _ Please. _

\---

Red room. Red star. New arm. New hand. New tongues – Russian it didn’t remember learning rolled off its tongue. No citrus, but red hair, red hair, red hair.  _Sasha,_ she called him.

\--- 

“But I… knew him,” the asset said, not understanding. Pierce slapped it in the face.

“Wipe him.”

It shut its mouth after that. But the asset played with its new word like a kitten with yarn, like a doll, like something it could toss back and forth, move around in its mouth.  _ Bucky.  _ The asset sucked on it.  _ Bucky _ , the man on the bridge had said. And something inside had purred. The asset knew something about electricity, but this word –  _ Bucky – _ made its skin tingle in a new way, an unfamiliar way.

It tried to hold a  _ B _ in sign language in its right hand while they wiped it so that when it woke back up, it might have a clue. It felt like resistance, though, and it knew it shouldn’t resist. It knew it loved HYDRA. HYDRA had finally taken their asset back. It knew it was making the world a better place.

But this was a secret it felt compelled to keep.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The wipe hurt too much, it lost his focus, and its fist flew open and closed with bursts of pain, and the  _ B  _ was lost before it could even remember why it was trying to keep it. By the time the restraints were coming off its wrists, it’d forgotten it was trying to remember anything at all.

\---

They put a Skorpion, one of its favorite guns, in its hands.

“You’re going to kill Captain Rogers, asset.”


	15. Project Rebirth

_ Steve  
_ November 8, 1943

 

Bucky’d hardly been able to look at him when he said goodbye last night. His departing words had been, “You don’t have to do this, Steve. You don’t.” 

So that was reassuring and painless.

Signing Peggy’s paperwork in the morning had been easy. Hugging her goodbye was harder. Not seeing Bucky’s face out of the cab window as he pulled away with the likes of Dolly, Dr. Erskine and Col. Phillips had been downright awful. But they had to leave. Dr. Erskine’s makeshift laboratory was set up in Verona and run by twin, whirring generators. It had to be there.

The three-hour ride in the automobile dragged, and Steve couldn’t be sure if the motion sickness was from the drive, the anticipated needles, or what he was leaving behind. Right before the process began, Erskine whispered into his good ear: “Remember, boy. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”

Stepping into the goddamn panini press with an audience of Italian men in tailored suits had been jarring. Watching the little vials of blue serum drain into his body had been frightening. The vita-rays had burned.  _ Don’t lose yourself _ , he’d thought as all of him caught fire.  _ Whatever you do, don’t lose yourself. _

He emerged to cheering, ears ringing, head spinning. He looked down at his chest, which was huge and tan and slick and filling with air, and there were so many  _ colors  _ and he tapped at his bad ear a few times, mesmerized by the sensation. For a split second, he thought of Bucky – were the feelings still there? Had the machine…  _ cured _ him?

He was relieved to find his love safely intact.

After celebratory glasses of champagne, Erskine, Dolly, Phillips, and Steve crammed back into the cabbie and made their way back to the base near Azzano. Time was of the essence. The war didn’t stop for scientific miracles.

***

Feeling like something out of  _ Brave New World _ , Steve Rogers stepped out of the cab and into the cool Italian air. He knew there was a lot to do, but he had to make a very important stop first.

“Where’s Sgt. Barnes?” he asked Falsworth and Morita when he bumped into them. They both pointed their fingers in the same direction, and Steve spotted him, cleaning his guns in the incoming twilight.

Steve looked sheepishly at Bucky, somehow still feeling small in his presence even though he’d just doubled in size, hair still plastered to his forehead with the sweat from the operation. Project Rebirth. Well, he sure felt naked and clumsy and overwhelmed, especially before Bucky’s disapproving gaze. Rebirth was an apt name. 

Bucky was posted up on a tree stump outside the cooking tent; the same stump, Steve realized, that Dernier had hammered empty bullet casings into to spell  _ WAR IS HELL  _ in all capital letters. Fittingly, Bucky was perched on the letters, his legs spread apart, wearing his olive drab Army-issue pants and a gray tank top covered in oil stains – Bucky was cleaning his guns, a ritual Steve knew to mean he was upset, calming himself down.

(But this was war, so Bucky was always cleaning his guns, always upset).

“You wait up for me?” Steve asked awkwardly. How to keep the conversation light but also convey how intense his feelings were?

“Yeah, right.” Bucky didn’t even look up.

Bucky was sweaty, wiping the back of his wrist across his forehead every few minutes and licking the sweat off his upper lip now and again. It was warm for November. Steve licked his own lips, suddenly thirsty, and stepped forward into Bucky’s line of vision, forcing Bucky to look at him. Bucky’s body froze when Steve’s boots came into his narrow view. With what looked like great effort, Bucky dragged his gaze away from his Tommy gun and raked his eyes up, up the length of what purported to be his best friend since childhood, Captain Steve Rogers.

Whoever the hell that was, anymore.

Steve squirmed under Bucky’s steel gaze, unable to read Bucky’s face as he took in his new, monumental form. It felt like hours passed as Bucky inspected Steve, his khakis, his belt, the huge sweat stain on the front of his too-tight T-shirt. Steve felt exposed, embarrassed to have Bucky looking at his body this way – not with the usual hunger and lust, but with a cold, calculating objectivity. Like he was being evaluated. Inspected. It was like his ma checking his shirt for wrinkles before Mass, like Bucky was  _ looking  _ for a flaw. Or maybe he was looking for something familiar – a freckle, a birthmark, to make him believe that it was really Steve standing before him. Whatever it was, he was too damn quiet. Steve resisted the urge to bark  _ say something  _ at him.

“What happened to your beard?” Bucky finally said, casually, like Steve hadn’t just gone explicitly against his wishes and put his life in grave danger for the chance to finally be good for something. Like Bucky hadn’t tried to talk him out of it for hours last night.

“They, uh, shaved it,” Steve said lamely. They both noticed that his voice was lower, more resonant, their eyes going wide as they looked at each other. Steve cleared his throat. “Want me to look cleaned up for the press.”   


“America’s Golden Boy,” Bucky muttered, nodding with understanding. He went back to cleaning his gun. Steve kicked a rock with his boot and shoved his hands – Lord, they were the size of dinner plates now, how would he ever be able to hold a pencil again? – into his pockets.

“Look, uh, I was wondering if I could snag a clean shirt? None of mine really fit no more and all of Dum Dum’s have pit stains and smell like the latrine. Just until Supply can get more down the chain to us.”

Bucky’s lips twitched like he wanted to smile before remembering that he was supposed to be mad.

“Ain’t  _ Peggy  _ got one?”

“No.” 

Bucky snorted. “How tall are you now, anyway?”

“Six-foot-two,” Steve declared proudly, puffing out his chest. Somehow it made him feel younger, childish. He retracted the motion, but not before Bucky noticed. Bucky stood up then – Steve secretly thought it was to compare their heights – and started walking toward his own tent, where his shirts were. Steve followed.

“It’s gonna be hard to get used to,” Bucky said, rummaging around in his things for a clean shirt. Well, a shirt that wasn’t rust-colored with old blood stains or stinking of river. In the meantime, Steve pulled the tiny shirt they’d squeezed him into off with one smooth motion. Bucky seemed to find one that did the job and pushed it at Steve, who very much did not fail to notice the way Bucky’s fingertips lingered on the taut skin between Steve’s belt and his belly button, just beneath his new gleaming six-pack abs. Heat traveled through his navel, and then Bucky’s fingers were gone. Steve curled his warm hands around the shirt, blinking. For an enhanced human, his brain sure was moving slow this evening.

“I know,” Steve said, startled again at his voice. “But I’m still me, Buck. I’m still me.”

“I know.” And there – there was the lopsided smile Steve was waiting for. Not as carefree as it once was in Brooklyn, but there, right there was his Bucky. “You’ve still got your big ugly nose. No amount of serum could cure that beak.”

“You’re a moron,” Steve said, returning the smile.

Bucky’s face changed. “You feel okay, though, Steve? Really?” Bucky let some of his concern show, here in the privacy of his tent, and Steve was grateful for it, for the pressure of Bucky’s grip on his forearm that meant he was serious. Bucky’s eyes looked over him again, but this was a way Steve was used to being looked at – all sick kids are. It’s the look that says  _ What hurts? _

“Healthy as a horse. I got color vision now, you know that? The world’s so much more… cheerful. I’ll be able to paint real nice when we get home. And I can fill my lungs with air, all the way, no wheezing. No rattlin’ or nothin’. It’s a miracle, Buck.”

Steve could tell a part of Bucky wanted to believe this was a Good Thing, though he could still sense resistance. Bucky’s hands fluttered like he was going to touch Steve again, check for himself that he was real and healthy and okay, but then Bucky just put them back down at his side, looking lost, like Steve was a foreign country. 

“I’m… glad,” Bucky finally said. Steve wished he could unhear the hesitation in Bucky’s voice.

“It’s okay, Buck. You can touch. If you want,” Steve said, reaching for Bucky’s hands and guiding them to his own forearms. Bucky left them where Steve placed them, but he didn’t pull away, which was maybe the first okay sign.

“Did it hurt?” Bucky asked, his fingers gently grazing Steve’s forearms, making patterns that Steve felt on his arm hairs.

“A little.”

“Is it permanent?”

“So far.” 

It made Bucky chuckle, a little, which was the point. The laugh seemed to unlock him, somehow. His hands started roving up Steve’s arms, slow and gentle. Steve could feel his callouses against his skin.

“Did...  _ everything  _ get bigger?” Bucky asked then, his hands on his biceps and his eyes focused  _ very intently  _ on Steve’s crotch.

“ _ Bucky!”  _ Steve hissed, scandalized.

“The people want to know,” Bucky said, innocent, pulling his hands off Steve’s arms. Christ, Steve almost whined out loud at the loss of contact.

“You can find out later,” Steve whispered in a rush, feeling bold. He thought it’d make Bucky smile. It didn’t. Instead, he wrung his hands and flopped down into his cot.

“We gotta stop this, Stevie. You ‘n’ me. It ain’t right.”

“The hell’re you on about?”

“Steve… it… you’re cured, pal. All ailments, just like Carter and that Fritz said you’d be. Color vision and no trick knees. You don’t… have to do this with me, no more. You can go neck with Carter or whatever it is that straight folk do, and if you go to Confession I’m sure God’ll understand–”

Steve kissed him, hard.

Bucky pulled back like he was stung. “Hell was that for?”

“Homosexuality isn’t a  _ disease  _ they can zap outta me. You do know that, right?”

“Steve, stop playin’,” Bucky said, but it was guarded. It was the kind of voice a man uses when he doesn’t dare hope. But Steve knew Bucky not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he kissed him again.

“I’m not,” Steve said, and now it was his arms on Bucky’s biceps. “I’m not pullin’ your leg, jerk. I’m tellin’ you how it is, for me. I’m a foot taller, I’ve got swell lungs, and I’m still queer as the day I was born.”

The whistle blew, and they rolled their eyes in unison. Bucky left the tent first; Steve counted to a hundred, and then followed.

***

Later that night, the Howlies gathered drunkenly around the fire and toasted to Steve, to Captain America, to Dr. Erskine, to science.

“To a man who finally has the body proportionate to the number of fights he wants to start!”

“To the Man with a Plan!”

“To America’s prettiest, blonde-haired, blue-eyed supermodel,” Bucky cooed after having a few himself.

“To color vision!”

The toasts went on, but Steve wasn’t really feeling the liquor. It was odd. Maybe his had been watered down or something. 

***

Steve wasn’t sure Bucky would come. Bucky had been so mad at him and acting so off all day, but sure enough, like clockwork, Steve could hear Bucky’s boots shuffling outside his tent at just past two in the morning.

“Come in,” Steve whispered at the dark.

“Thank God, I’m freezing my balls off out here,” Bucky said. Steve’s eyes adjusted quickly – inhumanly quickly, this body was something else – to see Bucky in only his trousers and an undershirt with a collared shirt thrown quickly over it, as if  _ that  _ would keep him from getting a demerit, shivering at the night wind chill. 

Bucky turned and sat on Steve’s cot without hesitation and started unlacing his boots like it was nothing.

“Wasn’t sure you’d come tonight,” Steve admitted, eyes trained on Bucky.

“Different body, same idiot,” Bucky said with a shrug. Everything seemed easier in the dark, somehow. Steve climbed in with him. “Mmm, you’re warm.”

Steve scooted to the back of his cot and lay down, waiting for Bucky to follow suit, which he did, because they both knew that Bucky would follow him anywhere. The end of the Earth.

_ Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. _

“I dunno how I feel about being the little spoon,” Bucky huffed lightly, hot breath ghosting over the arm Steve had slung over him. “Makes me feel kinda queer.”

Steve pumped his hips forward, his half-hard erection pressing into Bucky’s backside. “How do you think I felt all those times being the little spoon? Besides, you think  _ this  _ is any less queer?” Steve pressed his dick against him for good measure, so Bucky would know what  _ this  _ he was talking about. Steve was rewarded with a little snort-laugh from Bucky.

“Guess you’re right, punk.” With that, Bucky pushed back into Steve playfully, and it made him whine in the back of his throat.

“Jerk,” he grunted. Steve pressed his hips forward again. He couldn’t help himself. The sensation in this new body that didn’t  _ ache  _ all the time was otherworldly. He picked up a little rhythm, pressing forward against Bucky, butt cheeks clenching on every roll in, his arm that had been tossed casually over Bucky’s side making its way lower, lower still. His right hand found purchase on the elastic waistband of Bucky’s drawers, and Bucky actually gasped aloud when Steve grabbed hold of him, already hard as a rock.

“Shhhhh,” Steve whispered, peppering Bucky’s exposed neck with kisses, his nose flush with Bucky’s skin. “We gotta keep quiet tonight, sweetheart.”

“ _ Mmmph _ ,” Bucky grunted, biting down on Steve’s pillow.

***

After, with Steve flopped on his back and Bucky sprawled on his chest (because that was an arrangement they could without Steve’s lungs giving out now), Steve mused out loud.

“You think I’m going to hell for this, Buck? I mean, if there was a hell and all, do you think’d I go for playing God and changing my cells and all that?”

“Steve…” Bucky sighed, and Steve could sense that he was about to make a joke by the twitch of Bucky’s lips. “You’re going to hell because I just came inside your ass.”

Steve laughed, watching the flame of Bucky’s lighter dance as he lit a cigarette. Waited a minute. “No, really, Buck. You think I’ll go to hell for it?”

Bucky looked up at him. “You really worried about this? Now of all times?”   


Steve nodded, biting his lip.

“Just be a Jew like me. It's a tough lot, I won't lie to ya, but there’s no such thing as hell. Pretty good deal if you ask me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line of poetry was from "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson :)


	16. The Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have guessed by my subtlety, we are, in fact, in the precise middle of their crossing timelines. So have an Outside POV to mark the passing.

_ Gabe Jones  
_ February 1, 1945

 

In the middle of the ravine in the middle of the Alps in the middle of nowhere, Gabe Jones watched Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes marching a few paces ahead of him with their hands on their hips in the middle of a seldom-used path, and Gabe could damn well see why. It was tragically cold, though he knew that both of his friends kept higher temperatures than the average human being these days. He’d happened to still be in the medic tent after the HYDRA liberation to overhear Dolly muttering to herself, “I don’t understand,” while taking Steve’s temperature for the third time. “103 degrees. You should be feverish. Bedridden! Comatose!” “I feel fine.” “And  _ you, _ ” she’d turned to Bucky, frowning. “At a close 101 degrees.” Bucky’d shrugged when Steve looked at him peculiarly). 

Now, Gabe watched Steve rub his hands together as they made footprints in the snow.

And if  _ they  _ were cold, Gabe was frozen solid.

“This must be what it feels like in a Nazi’s heart,” Gabe had joked. His teeth chattering sort of ruined the effect.

The mountains rumbled. He and Mr. Stars-and-Stripes and Bucky looked at one another. And then they realized that it wasn’t the mountains but the train, moving like a black snake.

It was just the three of them, here, at the top of the snow-capped mountain, at the center of the universe, in the middle of this messy war. Dum Dum and Morita had gone ahead and set up the zipline. Falsworth and Dernier were already on the train, disguised. They had one mission: capture Arnim Zola, and figure out where the HYDRA Headquarters was.

Should have been easy enough. They’d been fucking up HYDRA bases for the entire last year. Captain Rogers was a good leader and an easy man to follow, and the shield Stark’d made for him was something else. They’d been all over. France in December of ‘43. Belgium the following January. They’d brought down a base in Czechoslovakia the following month, and a HYDRA-taken castle in the Danish Straits after that. Gabe had  _ stories  _ for the boys back home. They weren’t going to believe this. Gabe, in an integrated, special infantry unit, taking down HYDRA with the likes of Captain America. It was exciting was what it was. But after news of Normandy broke in June of ‘44, the stakes were raised. They were winning – now, it was all about keeping the pressure. News about what the Nazis and HYDRA operatives were doing was… relentless. They needed to be stopped.

“You remember that time at Coney Island? When I made you ride the Cyclone?” Bucky asked Steve, coming to a stop but swaying a little on his feet, exhaustion showing on his handsome features. Didn’t Gabe know. Though to be honest, Gabe was getting pretty damn tired of third wheeling while the two of them waltzed down memory lane. Did anyone  _ need  _ this many inside jokes? 

“And I threw up?” Steve asked, pale with frosted pink cheeks. His red, white, and blue uniform shone against the white snow. 

“This isn’t payback, is it?”

Gabe looked back and forth between them, disbelieving that the two soldiers at his side could be teasing each other at a time like this. Then again, he was probably the only one who felt like his eyeballs might freeze if he didn’t move them enough.

And that was...it. It seemed oddly anticlimactic, a trivial detail from their home lives before they were going to bloody zipline across the Alps onto a moving train carrying exclusively men who wanted to kill them. Gabe had never felt further from home.

Bucky seemed to think the same thing, because even as he stood at the ledge, right hand on his hips, all brooding eyes and set lips as he scanned the frozen landscape, he extended his left hand out behind him wordlessly.  

Gabe, always the fucking  _ last to know anything, come on! _ , realized suddenly that Barnes wasn’t hoping for the canteen, or a grenade, or a map. Not even the grappling hook they’d shoot at the tracks as the train’s smokestack drew closer.

No – Barnes simply was reaching for Cap’s hand.

It took surprising effort not to  _ aw  _ aloud.

Before the war, Jones had studied literature. Not that that did him any good in the field, but hey. If anyone needed a sonnet recited at them, he was their man. So it struck him, hard, as Cap stepped forward and reached a leather-gloved hand into Barnes’, noticed the hard squeeze, the brief closing of Cap’s eyes. When he opened them, he gave Gabe a pointed look, daring him to say something. Taken aback by the full intensity of those blue eyes drilling a hole in him, Gabe raised both hands innocently.  _ I come in peace. _

There wasn’t time for questions. No “how long?” or “do the others know?” Gabe took it for what it was – and the icy, defensive look Cap gave him told him to take it to his grave. So he would.

And then the moment passed and they were zipping over the ravine, the bottom far and jagged, rocky and dark. The old mantra, “Don’t look down,” echoed in his mind as he squeezed his eyes closed and felt the frozen wind whip his face. Cap had gone first, Sarge on his heels. Gabe followed, feeling decidedly like the third wheel. It was something they’d laugh about later. That’s all. He’d get all his questions answered when they weren’t stuck in the middle of all this. Pitcher and catcher and everything in between. 

Gabe did what he did best: went into mission mode, cocked his gun, and blew the brains out of any black-clad Hydra agent who so much as looked at him funny. They were the Nazis of Nazis – he didn’t feel too bad about shooting first and asking questions later. He knew his place, too; he wasn’t the protagonist of this story – that was reserved for Captain America and his star-crossed best friend since childhood. Gabe would make his way into the history books as the guy who cleared the way for Captain America to capture that Hydra scum. Being hero-adjacent had always been enough for Gabe Jones. He had a baby daughter to get back to, after all.

Cap and Sarge took off for the front of the train; Gabe would hold off anyone coming up from the rear. Give them a head start in the search for the brutal mastermind (if you could call him that) Arnim Zola. That was what they’d decided on. Gabe stayed in the middle of the train. He did as he was told.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

The explosion rattled the entire train – Gabe couldn’t even tell which direction it came from at first, and motion sickness made him weak at the knees. It was the blood-curdling yell from the front of the train that made Gabe leave his station, pull away from the middle of the train, and go after Barnes and Rogers. He could die. He could be collateral damage, all things considered. But the Howlies needed their Captain and America, its symbol of hope. The tide of the war had turned, and he’d be damned if he let them turn it back.

He stepped carefully over the massacred Hydra agents – they might be evil, but Mama didn’t raise an ass who didn’t respect the dead – and then took off at a sprint toward the front train cars where Sarge and Rogers had blasted off in search of the Zola character who Gabe knew struck a very specific fear in Barnes’ heart. It was unnaturally quiet – only the roar of the wind and the rumble of the tracks in his ears. No gunfire. No explosions. No voices, English or German.

Gabe sucked in a breath, crawled into the open air,  _ did not look down _ , and climbed into the next car. No sign of them. No sign of clash at all. He puffed out his chest. Onward. He just had to be brave for ten minutes. The next ten minutes. 

Despite the definite adrenaline rush, he yakked in the third car he passed through. It was not a great day for being terrified of heights, admittedly.

He found him in the fifth car.

Captain Steve Rogers, on his goddamn knees, the shield upside down at his side. Gabe didn’t have the words to describe the raw animal  _ pain  _ that escaped Cap’s open mouth, the way it tore him utterly in half. That sound became Gabe’s middle. There was Gabe Jones before that sound, and Gabe Jones after that sound, and it all centered around the reverberating agony that was the incarnation of audible hurting.

He wished, sometimes, that he’d done it differently. Said something. Cried out, too. But in that moment, Gabe set his jaw and thought,  _ let’s get you out of here _ . For the rest of his life, he’d never understand how he’d been able to carry Steve off that train.

\---

“They won’t teach you this in your classes, but look it up: I carried Captain America off that train. And I don’t tell you this because I want to brag – I mean, I do, but that’s not  _ why  _ I tell you this, that day should solely commemorate the astounding loss of the brave Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th – but to tell you it is the small actions of men and women that are always there, piled up behind the big ones. I didn’t crash the Valkyrie into the Arctic. That was all Cap. But I helped get him there. So my advice? Go. Do. And remember that no act is too small. Create your ripples, Class of 1973. And congratulations.”

_ Jones, Gabe. “Commencement Speech.” Graduation, 15 May 1973, Washington D.C., Howard University. _


	17. Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: suicidal ideation

_ Steve  
_ February 5, 1945

 

Steve had never much liked the taste of alcohol. The buzz was alright, sometimes. It dulled the pain when Bucky was giving him stitches in their kitchenette. It dulled the pain when the tuberculosis won and he lost the only proper family he had left. It kept him warm that first winter while Bucky was away at Basic. It dulled the pain when he had to do his own stitches in the dirty bathroom mirror because Bucky was gone, and that only made Steve mouthier. (It didn’t, however, dull the pain of Bucky being gone).

Now, he was eight shots deep and did not know a person could take this kind of pain and survive it. He couldn’t fathom how his ma went on when the officers came to her door, seeing that she was a poor pregnant Irish woman, and still had the audacity to tell her that the mustard gas was stronger than her husband. He couldn’t fathom how the folks in the concentration camps went on at all. And he couldn’t fathom ever getting up from this chair and being a person again.

It was the same Venetian pub where he’d stupidly asked Bucky to join his team. Selfish was what it was. Why had he looked at his POW of a best friend with the road home laid honorably before him and said, “Come with me?” How had he done that in good faith?

Bucky had a  _ family.  _ Bucky had been still miraculously able-bodied and good-looking, charming even when he was hurting. Bucky had had a real future in the States. And because Steve hadn’t had any of that, he thought it was fair to ask Bucky to stick his neck out for him one more time.

One last time.

Shot number nine burned down his throat. Still nothing.  _ Christ,  _ Erskine.

The pub was depressing; symbolic, even, the way it had once been aglow with pomp and laughter and Peg’s sinful red dress, and how the Luftwaffe had left it shattered and gray and turned to ash.

Steve heard footsteps.

“Drinking, Captain?” Peggy asked; he knew it was her before he even turned around. He gave her the benefit of the doubt – pretended that he hadn’t heard the accusation in her sharp, unmistakable voice. He didn’t have the goddamn energy.

“Dr. Erskine said that the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles – it would affect my cells, too. A protective system of healing and regeneration. Which means…” he paused, glowering at the bottle of whiskey. “I can’t get drunk.” He sighed tiredly and let his response hang in the air, as if it answered her question. Then his eyes narrowed. “Did you know that?”

“Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average man,” Peggy said as if he didn’t already know that. As if his mere double rations didn’t leave his stomach snarling for more at the end of every day. “We thought it might be a side effect.”

“Didn’t think to mention it before I signed the papers?”

“Is this really what’s important right now?” Peggy snapped. “Who are you  _ really  _ angry at?”

He looked down at his hand which all but swallowed the chipped shot glass. He knew she meant Zola. Schmidt. HYDRA. He knew she wasn’t actively trying to be this cruel. But really, the only person he was truly angry at was himself.

Peggy, astute as always, laid a hand over his. Forgiveness was in her nature.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

“Did you read the report?” A beat. Her silence was an affirmation. “Then you know that’s not true.”

She sighed. Steve almost thought he saw a silver hair amongst her brown curls. The war took its toll on everyone. He started to pour shot number ten, if not for the alcoholic effects then at least for the routine of the thing, whatever placebo he could coax out of it. Peggy wrapped her hand around his wrist, as if to stop him, but seemed to change her mind.

“Pour me one, too,” she said. He watched as her shot went down like water. She didn’t even make a face, let alone ruin her lipstick. Steve marveled at her, and she moved to stand behind him, perhaps out of his gaze.

“You’re somethin’ else,” he said quietly, leaning his head back against her middle and closing his eyes. She placed a calloused hand on either of his shoulders.

“You did everything you could,” she said gently. “If you respected your friend, then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it.” Steve shuddered as her voice became ragged and grew closer to him. Even eyes closed, he knew she was hovering above him, lips almost brushing his ear. “I know I do.”

“Peggy…” he said sadly. A warning. 

“You loved him,” she concluded, her hands suddenly gone from his shoulders as she stepped out from behind him. Steve felt released, her hovering presence no longer trapping him. They both knew she didn’t mean  _ like a brother. _

“I’m going after Schmidt,” Steve replied, evading her question and answering it all at once. “I won’t rest until all of Hydra is dead or captured.” He opened his eyes and sighed as the weight of Carter’s hands slid off his shoulders.

“I would expect nothing less,” Peggy said proudly, despite what he’d just not-quite-admitted to her. “And Steve? I won’t tell anyone,” she added before disappearing through the broken glass and out of the pub. 

She was just barely out of sight when Steve heard the first sob. He closed his eyes, sunk deeper into his chair, and poured another one. 

Dernier was right. War  _ was  _ hell.

***

If Steve killed himself, it’d be bad for morale.

He didn’t want to kill himself, exactly. He just wanted to die. A small but important distinction, he thought, as he imagined him and Gabe and Falsworth and Dum Dum and Dernier traversing Europe and tearing apart HYDRA bases, one after the other. Missions that would allow him to avenge Bucky and avoid Peggy’s sad but understanding eyes. He dreamt of them, like the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, up on a billboard watching him while he slept.

That nightmare, at least, was preferable to the usual one where Bucky screamed, “Whatever happened to  _ not without you _ ?” as he slipped from Steve’s fingers to an icy death in the ravine.

Yeah. Much preferred.

So he shouldn’t kill himself. And hardly anyone could kill him, what with the regenerating cells, super strength, and expert marksmen he’d surrounded himself with, any of whom would give their lives before they even thought about losing their captain.

That was the problem with being a beloved national icon.

But if he could be a martyr…

Not a real one, of course. Martyrs didn’t pre-emptively  _ try  _ to become martyrs – that sort of defeated the whole purpose. But no one had to  _ know  _ that. If they  _ thought  _ he was a martyr, then he could get some fucking peace while using his death to continue to inspire the Allied forces. It could win them the war. And wasn’t that the whole reason he’d come over here? To get this damn thing over with? Because what was the goddamn point, anymore?

***

It was all happening so fast. Once they’d gotten the coordinates out of Zola, the plans had come together overnight. Steve had sped into the HYDRA HQ alone on his motorcycle, the word  _ martyr  _ on his lips, closely followed by the rest of his team.

And now Steve’s feet were flying, legs burning as he tested the full breadth of his super human speed, this  _ body _ and all its wonders, lungs barely feeling the strain of his running. It was such a rush, even after all this time of being huge, larger than life. He never forgot what it felt like to be sickly, creaking. Running like this, arms pumping, chest heaving, limbs in sync and concrete lost beneath him – well. He was soaring. He was alive. He chased Johann Schmidt into the hangar, alone.

The HYDRA bomber on the runway ahead of him got closer as he shrank the space between them with long strides.  _ Free _ , he thought.  _ I’m home free. _

His feet left the earth for what he knew would be the last time, dangling from the back of the Valkyrie and pulling him up by arms that could finally support his weight.

And then he was hurtling himself forward, upward, hands latching onto metal at the end of a perfectly maneuvered arc, and the plane was going up and he was going with it.

He pulled himself up hand over hand, ignoring the amazement at his own dexterity as he climbed inside the aircraft with a steadying breath. He had work to do, and a friend to meet on the other side.

It was almost too easy. The three HYDRA goons fell beneath his shield, the fancy metal one Stark had gifted him.

_ “It looks like a fucking target,” Bucky had complained on multiple occasions.  _

_ “We  _ want  _ the bullets to hit the shield, Buck. It’s the soft parts  _ behind  _ it we want to protect,” Steve had explained patiently each time. _

_ Bucky had only  _ humph _ ed in response. He’d known Steve was right. _

It came down hard on the first guy’s chest, followed by Steve’s fist to his face. There was no restraint – Steve held nothing back. The second guy put up more of a fight; Steve dodged his bullets with care, ready to die but not quite yet, making sure he positioned himself away from the explosives in the back of the plane. No need to get ahead of themselves. But he kicked out the guy’s knee and slammed the shield down on the center of his spine, and the man crumpled with a yell and didn’t get back up.

Now for the pilot who was still operating the bomber but looking over his shoulder at Steve every few seconds. You always go for the pilot last. 

“Not today,” Steve said, stepping forward into a fighting stance as the man fumbled for his gun. The guy visibly gulped and moved faster than Steve had expected, slamming a black-gloved fist on a green button before hurtling himself away from the control panel.

“I don’t think so,” Steve muttered, impatient as he reached over his shoulder for the shield on his back and whipped it, hard, at the guy’s throat. All he could think, as the disc boomeranged back into his hand in the confined space, was  _ thank God I didn’t take his head off.  _ It would’ve been a bloody last thing to see.

Instead, he watched as the man gurgled out a  _ Hail HYDRA  _ that made Steve want to shoot him through the head, just to be thorough. But there wasn’t time. And that wasn’t his style.

“NO!” came a sudden shout – Schmidt, though Steve couldn’t see where his voice was coming from.  
  
“Show yourself,” Steve said into the seemingly empty cockpit, looking around for the source of the voice. Schmidt came out of nowhere, jumping him from behind, and Steve lashed out with his shield, only to see–

–light, brilliant blue light as Schmidt, his eerie, inhumanly red face aglow with the blue haze, vaporized with a yell before Steve’s very eyes. 

Steve blinked in confusion, looked around for a few more minutes, and then replaced the shield onto the harness on his back. He had a plane to land.

Steve seated himself at the front of the aircraft, chest heaving and overheating in the warm suit as he took in the controls, the illegible German instructions. He understood one thing for sure: this plane was headed to New York City. Pearl Harbor headlines flashed through his head; he couldn’t let that happen. Not again. Not on his own turf. 

Suddenly, the radio crackled. It was Morita, the damn genius. Of course it was.

_ “Come in, Captain Rogers.” _

Then Peggy’s voice, stressed and shrill and urgent.

_ “What about the plane?”  _ she demanded, uninterested in the fact that Steve had just told her that Schmidt was dead.

“That’s a little bit tougher to explain,” he tried. Which was true. It was tough to explain that he was in a German bomber on autopilot headed to New York, and harder to explain that he was hearing death’s call like a lullaby, not an alarm.

_ “Give me your coordinates _ ,  _ I’ll find you a safe landing site,”  _ she commanded simply. Still trying, uselessly, to save him.

“There’s not gonna be a safe landing,” he explained. It wasn’t a lie. This shit was fit to blow, and like hell was he going to let another innocent person get hurt on his watch. “But I can try to force it down.”

_ “I’ll get Howard on the line. He’ll know what to do.”  _ She was missing the point. 

_ Peggy, stop, please _ , he wanted to say. He opted for, “There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast, and it’s heading for New York.” Why involve more people? Why get Howard on the line in these final moments? It was bad enough that Pegs, and maybe Morita, were listening to the dispatch. “I gotta put her in the water.”

Suddenly, like coming up for air while drowning only to realize you’re about to go over a waterfall, he realized with every enhanced cell in his body that he didn’t want to die.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to  _ die.  _ It was too late. Because every word he was saying to Peggy was true. He  _ had  _ to take the plane down. It was the only way. But he didn’t want to go just yet. He wasn’t ready.

He was 26 years old.

Erskine said the serum would get him to thirty.  _ And beyond _ , he’d said. But that was all Steve ever wanted. Just thirty.

_ “Please,”  _ Peggy begged, her voice breaking. “ _ Don’t do this. W-we have time. We can work it out.”  _ Steve’d never heard Margaret Catherine Carter stutter in all the time he’d known her.

“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die.” His own voice sped up; his heart raced. This was really it. His own icy death. How fitting. An eye for an eye, then. Good ol’ karma, ready to claim her next victim. Her fake martyr.

_ Fuck _ .

The plane continued to speed along. He had to set the record straight.

“Peggy. This is my choice,” he said, echoing her own words from the pub, imploring her for the dignity of his choice as she’d wanted him to do for Buck. Trying, with his last breaths, to save her from the survivor’s guilt that had latched around his own neck. Quite the albatross. But she had to know. 

He put her picture up on the dashboard and fumbled for Bucky’s dog tag that hung down in front of his heart. Together, then.

The superstitions were wrong. It was supposed to be that if someone had your tags, you couldn’t die in the field. But Bucky had his, and he’d seen how far that’d got him. And now here Steve was, in his final moments, his fingers wearing down the familiar letters he knew backwards and forwards.

With that, Steve tipped the plane forward. His mouth suddenly tasted of innocuous, long-forgotten Florida oranges, and a sheen of sweat covered his face. He must look like a ghost. Ironic, how the living begin to look like the dead.

“Peggy?” he said, missing her voice already. What a terrible thing it was, to die alone.

_ “I’m here.” _

“I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance.”

_ “All right,” _ she said, and it was then and there that Steve decided she was the strongest woman he ever knew.  _ “A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club.” _

“You got it,” he played along, choking back a sob.

_ “Eight o’ clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?” _

“You know, I still don’t know how to dance,” Steve replied. Just talking. Just filling these last minutes however he could, overstuffing each precious second, like the grape leaves Mrs. Barnes used to make. He imagined himself in Bucky’s tent, the oil lamp, pressed together and turning to a melody that only existed in Bucky’s head. How gentle, how right. A love like theirs hadn’t belonged in this war, anyhow. 

Maybe Bucky’d teach him how to dance in heaven. Lindy hop. Swing. Maybe he’d show Pegs, someday long after this one, after the long full life no one deserved more than her.

He prayed to God that Peggy survive this fucking war.

_ “I’ll show you how. Just be there,” _ she urged. As if that could turn the plane around. As if Steve’s dedication to punctuality could save him now.

“We’ll have the band play something slow.” He wanted to kiss her. “I’d hate to step on your toes–” he said, but the radio crackled and then went off entirely. Its silence consumed him. Steve Rogers was really, utterly alone. He left his sentence hanging – there was no point finishing it with no one to hear it.

He took in the sunrise. It was worth painting. He took in the feeling of his arms and legs, of being alive, of breathing oxygen and sending it all the way down to his toes. Took in the bloated, tight feeling in his massive chest, the adrenaline that kept him from hardly blinking at all.

Just him, then.

“Bye, Pegs,” he whispered to no one. “See you real soon, Buck.”

The nose of the plane collided first, and the ripple of the impact surged through his muscle, shattered the windows and his bones alike, was louder than any sound he’d ever heard, even Bucky’s rapid gun fire in his ear. He didn’t fall unconscious away. Instead, he felt the cold inch its way in, ears ringing, his hands trapped under the debris. The glass toppled him, cut his exposed face. His lungs tightened and gave, left him gasping for air like he was having an asthma attack all over again, and the strap of the seat belt cut into him until finally he felt his awareness drift, and his left hand finally fell slack around the dog tag that proudly read: 

_ SGT. JAMES B BARNES _

_ 32557038 T42 43 O _

_ STEVEN G ROGERS _

_ 1478 E 28TH STREET _

_ BROOKLYN NY H _


	18. The Howlies: A Year In Review

_ Bucky  
_ Christmas Eve, 1944.

 

Bucky lay on Steve’s chest – Steve’s new, Adonis chest – his head resting between Steve’s shoulder and collarbone. Well, it wasn’t  _ new _ new – Steve had been big now for a whole year. But it still seemed new to Bucky who had had twenty-six uninterrupted years of Steve being a little punk. 

They didn’t have long; Bucky was sharing a tent with Dum Dum these days, and his watch would be over soon. But they liked to pretend they had time, and Bucky wasn’t planning on moving anytime soon with his hand pressed against the strong, steady beat of Steve’s heart. 

As much as he’d opposed this whole steroid thing (was  _ still  _ opposed to it, by the way – just because his best guy got all beefy did  _ not  _ mean it had the James B. Barnes seal of approval), well.

That heartbeat sure was something.

Steve was boneless, all post-sex laziness and the occasional kiss to Bucky’s knuckles, his forehead. Even after all this time of fucking like rabbits now that Steve’s body could handle so much  _ more  _ and sharing enough near-death experiences to give them both a sense of raw urgency and desire, Bucky still couldn’t quite believe it. He kept expecting to wake up one day and find that Steve had changed his mind. But contrary to what he expected, Steve was still a fairy on the inside. Which meant that it wasn’t just that the Nazis had used some kind of half-assed serum on him that had kept his queerness intact – it was that being queer  _ couldn’t _ be cured. The serum did exactly nothing against his or Steve’s homosexuality, if Steve’s drying cum on his chest was anything to go by. It wasn’t, then, an imperfection. It wasn’t a disease. So maybe it didn’t need to be cured.

Bucky tried not to cry on Steve’s chest. He couldn’t explain it; he’d been emotional ever since Kreischberg.

“You alright, Buck?” Steve asked, always intuitive when it came to him.

“Just glad you’re still here with me,” Bucky sniffled honestly. He’d been going soft. Even as a Jew, he had to admit there was something magic about Christmas Eve. Besides, between the missions and the danger, there was no time for anything less than the truth.

Steve hummed in agreement and squeezed Bucky to him.

“Tell me more.”

“More what?” Bucky asked.

“More about us. I like it when you talk. You’ve been quiet, lately.”

Bucky couldn’t argue with that. He traced Steve’s nipple with his fingertips mindlessly as he thought. “I think, sometimes.”

“You know, I had a hunch you might know how to think,” Steve teased. Bucky pinched the nipple and covered Steve’s mouth at the same time so no one could hear the subsequent yelp. Just because he got bigger and stronger didn’t mean Bucky couldn’t make him squeal like a girl.

“I  _ think _ ,” Bucky paused, daring Steve to interrupt again, fingers threatening in first-position for another pinch. When Steve kept his mouth closed, Bucky continued, “about going home, sometimes. You know, when all this fighting blows over and FDR signs some treaty and the boys pack up and go home. You ever think about that?”

“Not really,” Steve admitted. Of course he didn’t. Bucky felt selfish and stupid all over, but it was too late now. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about, much less  _ talk about  _ home for so long. He’d prayed to G-d:  _ keep Steve alive; take me instead. _ But now Steve was the heavyweight champion Bucky had always aspired to be, and they were both science experiments out of one of his novels, and if nothing made sense anymore then maybe his contract with G-d was void after all. So he let himself, piece by piece, start imagining home again. Not expecting it, just hoping. Letting the little details he’d kept so staunchly at bay come back in. His sisters’ faces. Ma’s cabbage rolls and mici. Ol’ Hank at the docks. Tea with Bernie on Sundays when Steve came back from Mass ready to eat a horse.

“Well, I do,” he said, watching his own hand trace patterns on Steve’s chest rather than look up into those radiant, selfless blue eyes. “I imagine it. You and me, we both survive, of course. Not much point in goin’ back without ya. We want space, at first. Go west, I think. ‘Bout time I saw the Grand Canyon.” Steve’s thumb started moving back and forth on his lower back, a little too hard to be considered gentle – Steve didn’t know his own strength. That was sort of the cute part, though – watching Stevie grow into his big paws.

“If we don’t both survive–” Steve started. Bucky frowned at him. He hoped his eyes said  _ don’t you dare start talking about death while your dingle is still touching my thigh. _

“ _ Don’t _ , Steve.”

“Just one thing?”

“Make it quick.”

“If we both don’t survive, I hope you  _ do  _ go back, Bucky. I ain’t your whole world. Becca and them need you.”

“That’s enough of that,” he said with what he knew was a note of finality. Silence spread across them. Steve didn’t take orders from no one, except from Bucky Barnes in bed, and he was damn well going to use that to his advantage.

“Tell me about the Grand Canyon,” Steve finally piped up, stretching to fold one of his arms behind his head. Bucky had to remind himself not to stare. In his defense, those arms were not something any mortal man could get accustomed to.

“So demanding.” Bucky  _ tsk _ ed, but sighed and continued. “I don’t know much. Ma took me outta school too early to learn about it. All the sophomores used to study it. Naomi told me about it – about all seven wonders of the world. I think it was carved by the river, though. The Colorado, you know? Over a long time.”

“Must’ve been a real long time.”

“Well, earth’s old as dirt,” Bucky said, then laughed at his accidental pun. Steve laughed too, a quiet shake that Bucky felt in his chest. He couldn’t get over how normal this felt. Like Steve had never yanked his stuttering ass off a HYDRA operating table. Like Steve hadn’t undergone a risky full-body experimental operation mid-fever and somehow stumbled out alive and well. Like there wasn’t even a war on. Like they hadn’t put bullets in twenty-two HYDRA goons just two mornings ago. Like they were just musing in their bedroom at home about comics and baseball and rent and the future.

When they settled down, Steve sighed happily. “The Grand Canyon, huh, buddy? I always pegged you for the settle-down type.”

Bucky sighed. They might as well talk about it. “Speaking of Peggy…” 

“What about her?” Steve asked. Bucky felt him stiffen – and  _ not _ in the good way. “I–I dunno, Buck. She’s special.”

“No shit,” Bucky retorted, waiting for Steve to say more. He hadn’t exactly been great about keeping his dislike for Agent Carter a secret.

“She’s amazing,” said Mr. Suddenly-Full-of-Compliments. “But she ain’t you, Buck.”

The  _ sap. _ Bucky smiled like an idiot into his chest anyway. 

“You really think we’ll settle down someday, champ?”

“I do,” Steve said with so much conviction that Bucky almost believed it himself. “It’ll be like this. We’ll have to marry girls, of course, to avoid suspicion. Maybe a pair of lesbians, or old maids, or rescued prostitutes who are so sick of the joy stick that they’ll just want a place with a hot shower and good company. We’ll be next door neighbors, upstate or something, and we’ll go over to each other’s estates–”

“We have estates?”

Steve game him a this-is- _ my _ -fantasy look, and continued, “–damn near every night. And you’ll learn to cook or get a hobby and I’ll get a nine-to-five that I hate, and we’ll live off our government pensions and grow old. And your camera, Buck, it’ll be the nicest on the market. We’ll get you any lens you want. All the film you could dream of. The best quality, Kodak and everything. For me? I’ll paint ‘til my hand shakes so bad that I have to stop. Maybe get a dog or two in the meantime. Pick up golf.”

When Steve had finished, Bucky crawled up and kissed him. It didn’t sound too bad at all.

_ If only _ , he thought, and made due with the time they  _ did  _ have before slinking off into his own tent, passing Dum Dum awkwardly on the way.

\---

Steve had been an overnight celebrity. Bucky remembered it vividly, the day everything had changed. Steve had come back miraculously unhurt from Erskine’s suspicious contraption in Verona, and Bucky had realized that he could tolerate a  _ lot  _ of pain but there was one pain-in-the-ass he couldn’t live without. And with ten seconds of courage, he’d snuck into Steve’s tent that night, and he realized he could never finger-bang another girl to save his life.

The next day had been a whirlwind. They’d marched early in the morning to Venice to convene with other Allied troops and ship home men from Kreischberg who were in pretty bad shape. Not all of them had had their walking pneumonia mysteriously cured by a stout German guy in spectacles. Colonel Phillips, who hadn’t given a rat’s ass about  _ Ranger _ , called  _ Captain Rogers _ into meetings all day. Bucky didn’t know exactly what they were up to until Col. Phillips had called  _ him  _ into some of the meetings.

“Captain Rogers says you know something about HYDRA, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky had told them everything he knew. Once, he excused himself to hurl in the bathroom. But he wiped his mouth and came back and kept talking. Between Steve’s memory of what he saw from the vents, Bucky’s knowledge of this  _ Valkyrie  _ they were building, and what Gabe overheard and translated, the colonel had created a pretty informed map of HYDRA operations. Bucky was excused, but as he was leaving, he overheard Colonel Phillips say something under his breath to Steve. It was starting to get concerning, how good Bucky’s hearing was these days.

“Whatdya think Rogers? It’s your map – think you can wipe HYDRA off it?”

Bucky swallowed, not wanting to think too hard about the implications of  _ that _ , and went to clean his guns. Again.

After the tactical meetings, Steve was sent to medical to be checked out by the doctors, and it didn’t escape Bucky’s notice the order in which those events took place. Always valuing the soldier, not the man. And Bucky definitely wasn’t jealous when Dolly had her hands all over him, and he definitely definitely didn’t clean all the guns he’d just cleaned the day before while he waited. But Steve emerged with a thumbs-up, and Bucky released the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and the troops were nursed back to health as higher-ups made decisions about honorable discharges, amputations, and their next move. They were packing up to move shortly, and there were tasks for everyone. Bucky didn’t see Steve for the rest of that day.

But that _night_ ** _,_** they made it to a pub called Cantina Do Mori, with its _founded in_ _1462_ insignia that made Bucky feel very young and American. It was a lively place. He honestly liked the joint, with its piano music and loud Italian voices mixing with louder American voices. There was a guy sitting all alone in the corner with such a wrinkled face that it made him wish for his camera, just to get a portrait and remember the face forever. He put a few back – everyone did, what else were you supposed to do post-rescue? – but they had to be careful; their stomachs weren’t really ready for hard liquor after the Kraut diet, as they’d called it. Still, he’d quickly realized that his stomach felt… oddly fine, and that the alcohol wasn’t affecting him much… at all. So he’d ordered another whiskey for good measure and sat at the bar alone, thinking. He knew what was coming, after all.

The German doctor’s serum had worked. They could make a team of enhanced soldiers, now. Actual superheroes, like Clark Kent and everything. They could make an  _ army  _ of super soldiers. Bucky knew it was supposed to make him feel better, like maybe there was an end in sight to this thing after all, but really it just rubbed him the wrong way. He’d had enough of Germans experimenting on him to last him the rest of his life, thank you very much.

When Steve joined him at the bar, he already knew what must have happened. The others must have said yes

“Told you. They’re all idiots,” he drawled, trying to sound a little tipsy. So that was it, then. They’d all get the serum. Dum Dum. Morita. Falsworth and Gabe. Even Dernier. Those guys were nuts. But then again, so was he.

“How ‘bout you?” Steve asked. A question Bucky’d known was coming but that cut to his core all the same. Even though the answer was about as inevitable as 2 + 2, a part of him still wanted to say no. So badly. He really, really didn’t want to be strapped to an operating table ever again. “You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” It had almost been funny, then, picturing himself following  _ Captain  _ Stevie Rogers, the mouthiest little New Yorker he ever knew, anywhere. Especially into a German-run mad-scientist machine that would blow him up like popcorn. His teeth were already pretty straight, weren’t they?

“Hell no,” Bucky said honestly. “But that little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight? I’m following him.” It made Steve blush and duck his head, and maybe Bucky was feeling the alcohol a  _ little _ , because if he didn’t think it would get him discharged immediately and ruin Steve’s life forever, he would’ve kissed him right smack in the middle of the pub. Besides, he could’ve used a distraction from what he had just agreed to.

But then every head in the pub turned, and Peggy Carter was wearing a red dress for no reason at all, and he knew he’d been asking for a distraction but  _ not like that, Jesus.  _ Steve eyed her like whatever was going on between them was very much  _ not  _ over, and it had put Bucky in a mood. She and Steve quipped about dancing or something like Bucky wasn’t even there.

It was safe to say that the next day, his guns were very, very, very clean.

But the next morning, Dr. Erskine was found dead in his tent. Cyanide. They all knew exactly what that meant.

_ HYDRA. _

“GOD DAMN IT!” cursed Col. Phillips in a rage. Everyone in a half-mile radius surely heard it.

And that had been that. The serum meant for Steve’s new tactical unit was stolen, the man who knew how to make more of it was gone, and none of the Howling Commandos could get  _ upgraded _ . Steve convened a meeting with them all. Unsurprisingly, every single one of them agreed to go after HYDRA anyway. Un-serumed. Vulnerable.

Bucky re-cleaned his guns.

\---

Steve was called into a different tent two days later. He emerged looking a little violated and very uncomfortable, like he was either passing gas or someone had just taken his measurements.

“What’s wrong?” Bucky’d asked over canned beans.

“Nothing,” Steve evaded. Bucky poked him with his spoon, getting  _ just enough  _ bean juice on Steve’s collar to warrant an eye roll. “They’re fixin’ me with a new uniform,” he admitted.

Safe to say, Bucky’s interest was piqued.

“You don’t say.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“You need  _ something _ your size, Steve, sheesh.”

  
“It’s not  _ that _ ,” Steve had mumbled, very deliberately not looking Bucky in the eyes.  _ Oh, this was gonna be good. _ “Just, you know that stupid nickname I came up with? Captain America?”

Bucky wanted to rub his hands together.

“Well… they kinda took that and ran with it.”

When Steve emerged two nights later in a literal  _ star-spangled  _ suit, like,  _ red-white-and-goddamn-blue _ , Bucky burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. Steve glared at him and crossed his arms, wholly unamused.  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Bucky said through laughs, tears streaming from his eyes as he clutched his sides. “It’s just, it’s too good to be true.”

Steve  _ hmph _ ed.

“That – is that the weapon they gave you?” Bucky asked, his eyes landing on the large metal dinner plate that they’d apparently given Steve to protect himself.

“It’s my shield.”

“You realize it’s painted like a  _ target _ , right? You see that too?”   


“C’mon, Buck, let it go.”

“Okay, just–just one more question. At the end of all this, can you – are you keeping the uniform?”

He was surprised Steve didn’t sock him in his grinning mouth.

\---

The first time they fought side-by-side, ripping apart a HYDRA base near Munich, Bucky had gotten injured. The injury wasn’t serious, but you wouldn’t know from Steve’s incessant fussing. The knife had  _ barely  _ stuck in him. 

Look, all he was doing was was trying to  _ protect _ Steve. It wasn’t his fault that he kept forgetting that Steve wasn’t small no more.

He had to consciously chant it to himself.  _ Steve can take care of himself. Steve can take care of himself. _ It was just so reflexive, automatic. Ingrained, like breathing. Something about Steve Rogers always flipped a switch in him: protect. Protect with everything you have.

Bucky had to push away the fact that maybe it hurt a little, not being needed anymore. 

At the same time, it brought to bear a new sort of elation. Because Steve always kept him around, always expected him on his six. And if there was a sort of jittery pleasure in being needed, it had  _ nothing  _ on its far superior cousin: being  _ wanted _ .

\---

So now here they were, thirteen months into their cross-continental rampage on HYDRA bases. Four of the six bases they’d mapped out were destroyed, and this Schmidt guy was  _ not  _ happy about it. Admittedly, this was not the war Bucky had expected to be in. It was not the war he had volunteered for as a lean twenty-something with Brooklyn at his feet. Captain America and his motley, hand-picked crew who hardly spoke the same language was not something Bucky had ever expected to be a part of. Then again, he hadn’t thought he’d be capable of hating something as much as he hated HYDRA, and he hadn’t thought he’d be capable of loving something as much as he loved Steve Rogers and his big nose that no serum could fix.

“C’mon,” Steve said, pulling Bucky up from the cot.

“I don’t wanna,” Bucky whined, going limp and noncompliant. Why couldn’t they just  _ lay here? _

“Dance with me,” Steve urged, and Bucky rolled his eyes but couldn’t help himself, showing Steve where to put his hands, his feet. The guy was hopeless, but they rotated to a sort-of rhythm that Bucky made up in his head. It was almost perfect, but then Steve went all tactical on him. The guy couldn’t go very long without thinking about how they were going to blow up the next HYDRA facility.

“So, the train that’ll be coming through the Alps…” Steve began.

“Shhhhh,” Bucky whispered. “Not now, Steve. We’re naked for Christ’s sake.”

“But–”  
  
“No. It’s Christmas Eve.”

“You don’t even celebrate–”

“No.”

“Fine,” Steve  _ hmphed _ into his shoulder, warm nose gliding along Bucky’s skin. “Merry Christmas, then.”

“Merry Christmas, Stevie.”


	19. The Man Out of Time

_Tony Stark  
_ October 2011

 

 

Okay, but really. How had his dad  _ never told him? _ After all the stories – Jesus fuck, the stories – of Captain America’s  _ impressive _ deeds,  _ valor, _ immovable moral compass, heroism,  _ strength _ , how had his father failed to mention this one critical detail? It had been missed by the historians, the documentary producers, Walter Cronkite himself.

Seriously, how?

Tony looked down again at the dog tags in Phil’s hand. As someone always keen for drama and a good plot-twist-turned-publicity-stunt (What? Call him shallow, but at least he was self-aware), even he had to admit this was unexpected. Pepper would know what to do; she was good at handling things like this. At least it was only the two of them in the lab today, he and Phil, with Steve Rogers’ pale, roid-riddled body snoozing eerily in the middle of the room on the defrosting table. He was one ghostly son-of-a-bitch. They couldn’t even stick an IV in him properly – every time they did, his skin  _ healed it out _ . 

“So... he was gay?” Phil finally asked, turning long-dead Sergeant James Barnes’ tag over in his palm, as if the back was going to say  _ Just kidding!  _ “I mean,  _ is  _ gay?” Coulson corrected his verb tense, as if  _ that  _ was the critical detail here.

“What, you don’t want Capsicle to sign your little collector’s cards if he’s a flaming homosexual?”

Phil glared at him – and alright, yeah, he deserved that.

_ “No,”  _ Phil said. “I just didn’t expect it. He always seemed so… traditional. The American dream and all that. I can’t really imagine him in glitter at a Pride parade. Not that I have anything against it,” he added quickly. “Because I don’t.”

So they were going to have a little _ who’s the most comfortable in his sexuality competition _ , were they?

Tony looked him over, poor guy. Phil was a stuttering mess anywhere within a twelve-foot radius of Cap. He grimaced to imagine how Phil would be when Rogers was  _ awake _ . Boy were they going to have clean-up to do.

“He might not be gay. My dad never mentioned it,” Tony mused, trying to  _ not  _ feel like he was in a morgue as he looked over Cap’s near-lifeless body.

“Maybe it had to be a secret, though. Hitler was going after the gays. I mean, the BLT… Gs. It wasn’t like, you know, today.”

“Hot take: I feel like you don’t wear another dude’s dog tags unless you’re crawling up his foxhole,” Tony shrugged. It was worth it to watch Phil blanch and subsequently attempt to compose himself after Tony said  _ foxhole. _

“Well, what do we do?” Coulson asked. The  _ we  _ made Tony smile. He said it like they were in murder mystery together.  _ Okay, Mystery Gang, old man Milfred’s haunting the amusement park on Main Street! What’s our move!? _

“You know, we could just _ ask _ him, champ.” Tony put a hand on Phil’s shoulder, which made him jump. “Occam’s razor and all that.”

He couldn’t help but smirk when he saw Phil’s mouth hanging open, speechless.

In all fairness to Phil, Tony was having trouble picturing it, too.  _ Just ask, Tony.  _ Just ask him. What could possibly go wrong?

_ “Oh, hey, Cap, yeah, I’ve heard all about you, welcome to this century, by the way, and quick question for you, Mr. 1945, was there ever a  _ Miss  _ America or does Captain America play for the other team?” _

 

***

 

Captain America was charming and handsome and well-adjusted and he only ran away once. Honestly, Tony could understand why his dad put the guy on such a high, unattainable pedestal. Captain America was the kind of guy everyone liked having around, that everyone wanted on their team at recess. Tony hated him for how  _ likable  _ he was, which was maybe counterintuitive, but  _ c’est la vie. _

But even Mr. Right was having some serious time-travel jet lag (as anyone catapulted seventy years into the future might), so they all agreed to give him a little grace period. Some space.

Well, they tried to, Tony amended.

On the third day of Rogers’ resurrection (don’t worry, the symbolism wasn’t lost on even an atheist like him), Phil slipped. Not during one of their regular PR training sessions, or during PT while Cap was destroying the hell out of (another) punching bag (seriously, Stark Tower must be singlehandedly keeping Everlast in business), or even during Steve’s daily Millennium 101 briefings. No, Phil dropped it during breakfast, right into the sausage and eggs.

“So what about Sergeant James Barnes?” Phil asked, excitedly. For an expert agent who Tony genuinely respected (even if he had inexplicable paternal feelings toward the kid – he’d unpack  _ that  _ never), Coulson was  _ full of questions  _ for Steve Rogers. It was almost embarrassing.

“He, well, you know – he was my best guy,” Cap said.  _ Probably meaning his best friend _ , he thought to himself.

Phil must have thought otherwise, because he said: “Oh, so it’s true? Sergeant Barnes was your boyfriend?”

Tony actually, literally, dropped his fork. 

“You… know about that?” squeaked Steve fucking Rogers at Tony’s fucking  _ dining room table. _

Tony actually, literally, lost his mind. Like, bits of egg fell out of his  _ mouth. _

 

***

 

After Cap accidentally outed himself (well, Coulson outed him, they were equally responsible), Tony called on JARVIS who called in a fresh whirl of PR professionals to figure out how to deal with this.

_ Note to self: saying “how to  _ deal _ with this” earns you glares from every single LGBTQ+ person in your vicinity, including Cap. Better to cut that one out of your vocabulary, Stark. _

There was Letitia, the queen of Lesbian twitter; Taylor, who used they/them pronouns and had a degree in gender studies and all things politically correct from NYU; Darcy who, let’s face it, just wanted to be there; and  _ President of the United States of America, _ Barack Obama, who seemed to think this could really break the ice (pun a  _ little _ intended) on his undoing of the antiquated Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in the military. It was a whole crew of them, surrounding a ninety-seven-slash-twenty-six-year-old  who was sure to be an extremely controversial overnight patriotic-ass gay icon.

Tony could see the cover shoot of  _ Out  _ magazine now. 

He might’ve felt bad for the guy if he hadn’t felt a little bit liked chopped liver ever since Steve’s glowing, sculpted, sunshine-infused body had gotten up off his lab table.

(And yes, Steve  _ actually  _ glowed, if you were wondering).

 

***

 

Steve was a trooper. Tony watched him navigate space with a kind of boyish politeness that would have seemed fake on anyone  _ but  _ Cap. Could a person ooze charm?

A person could ooze charm.

Taylor walked Steve through the whole history of queer folk in North America. Tony made JARVIS record the sessions and watched them himself late at night, listened to them like podcasts while he tinkered away in his lab. He learned… a lot, actually. New words, like  _ nonbinary  _ and  _ heteronormativity, _ and which words were incorrect or offensive, like  _ hermaphrodite _ , and a timeline that had never been taught to him in boarding school, from Sappho to Stonewall. 

Once, over a tofu dinner (Pepper was in one of her vegetarian, I-hate-Tony-Stark-specifically phases), he had said, “I want to address toxic masculinity.” Pepper had looked at him like he’d grown a second nose. “No, really,” he’d insisted. “I should probably apologize.”

On another night, Pepper had called to him from the doorway to their bedroom.  “What are you doing? It’s three o’clock in the morning, Tony. Come back to bed.”

But Tony was alone on their couch, arms wrapped around his knees, a bottle of wine half-drunk on the coffee table (no glasses, he was sure Pepper noticed) and tears in his eyes. The credits of the movie  _ Milk  _ rolled down the screen. “Sorry, Pep. I just, I didn’t know.”

“Should we have Steve over for dinner?” she asked him softly, padding over to him and wrapping her arms around his tensed shoulders.

He’d nodded against her. Damn, Cap was making him soft.

 

***

 

Having Steve ‘over for dinner’ was weird. First, Tony wasn’t sure he wanted Dreamy McManners anywhere near his fiancé – he figured that people with hearts like theirs had affinities for each other, and he’d already lost out to Cap in Dad’s eyes, no need to do that all over again; and second, having him ‘over for dinner’ was a lot more anticlimactic when all he had to do was text Cap (on his new phone):  _ come upstairs. _

The news outlets were hungry for Cap’s official personal statement now that he had been recovered from the ice, and Rogers was on lockdown until he gave one. Where  _ else  _ was he gonna go? JARVIS would tell Tony if Cap were trying to make a break for it.

“Captain Rogers has arrived, sir,” JARVIS announced.

“Send him in.”

Pepper and Steve took to each other like college freshman to Crystal Palace. Their united  _ glow  _ made Tony feel like he was third-wheeling his own dinner plans. But he couldn’t be third-wheeling, because Steve Rogers himself had practically announced that he was gay when he woke up off the table like motherfucking Aslan. Which reminded him...

“So, Cap – can I call you Cap? – Captain America, sir,” Tony said fake pompously, “When do we get to hear your big speech?”

“Speech?” Steve asked, quirking one carefully crafted 1940s eyebrow, making Tony feel like the bad guy.

“You know...  _ hey, I’m back, no photographs, please, I love the twenty-first century, I love men...” _

Pepper kicked him under the table.  _ Valid _ , he thought.

“You really think that’s such a good idea?”

“Gay marriage might be on the table soon,” Tony said, more seriously. “And there’s plenty of LGBTQ kids out there who could use a friendly, clean-shaven, military hero saying, ‘It gets better,’ or whatever.”

“I’ll think about,” Rogers said, and chewed his food.

 

***

 

A week later, Cap gave the speech of his life on television; Pepper cried and Tony pretended not to, so he knew it was moving. 

_ The world’s first gay superhero _ , the headlines read. Tony had to blink at them to remind them they were real, and this was really his life.

Fury seemed hopeful about adding a little diversity to his team of crime-fighting super weirdos at S.H.I.E.L.D., and Steve made off to an expensive tattoo shop in Chinatown and get the contents of Barnes’ dog tags inked permanently onto his chest, left side. Where his heart was. Tony wasn’t supposed to know, but who else was going to whip up a tattoo ink that Steve’s enhanced body wouldn’t break down if not him?

 

* * *

 

_ Steve _

October 2011-June 2012

 

He went to bed in 1945. He woke up in 2016. And he didn’t get much rest at all.

After he woke up in their ‘recovery room’ post-thawing (and the gentleman in him did  _ no _ t like to think about these people undressing him and seeing his family jewels, thank you very much), the doctors asked him how he broke through S.H.I.E.L.D.’s carefully-crafted facade so quickly.  _ How’d he know? _

“Where am I really?” he’d asked the agent within twenty seconds of being awake. He’d told them he knew because the baseball game on the radio was from May 1941. That he’d been to that game. And that was true. He had been at that game. Some jerk had spilled his peanuts, and they’d cost a  _ nickel _ , and that was a crying shame. 

But that wasn’t his first inclination that he had woken in not only the wrong year, or the wrong decade, but the wrong century. He’d really known that it wasn’t 1945 Brooklyn by the slack of the sheets. No one from home was going to make a bed where the sheets weren’t perfectly taut at every corner. The bed wasn’t made the way his mother, and he later he, would’ve made them. They weren’t Army standard. Bucky’s mother used to yell at them.  _ If I can’t bounce a penny off that mattress when I get home, young man…  _

She never had any pennies. They made their beds anyway.

“The way the bed was made,” he told his doctor with a sour laugh and a shrug. “You guys don’t make ‘em with hospital corners. These would never fly in the Army.”  _ That’s when I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. _

“By the way,” he’d asked a minute later, his mind fuzzy. “What… happened?”

Stark had answered that. “Well, the freezing temperatures of the Arctic ice created a cryogenic atmosphere that kept your cells–”

“No,” Steve had interrupted. “With the war?”

“Oh shit, kid,” Tony had said. Steve winced at the language. He’d only just  _ met  _ the guy. “Well, the  Allied forces won, it was a big deal. There’s a real famous picture of a sailor kissing a girl in Times Square – although apparently she didn’t want to be kissed, so that’s controversial now. Used an H-bomb on Japan to win, though, so I guess that was controversial too…  Then they created the United Nations, the Jews got Israel, L.A. got the Dodgers, and the rest is history." 

"Wh-what?" He’d had to repeat it three times for Steve to catch on.

That morning, that very first one, he had run out of their facility into the streets of Manhattan like a cornered animal. Afraid. Scandalized. Confused. Disbelieving. Wishing it not to be true.  _ Wishing so badly for it not to be true.  _

It made him sad now, all these weeks later, to think of how futile the running had been. Where in the world had he been trying to go? He wasn’t Superman. No matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t reverse the Earth’s spinning and turn back time. He was here, now. He had no choice in the matter. And that was that.

The doctors used words like _ miracle  _ and _ lucky.  _ A victory of science, one said. There were a lot of doctors in the twenty-first century. Different ones for different parts of the body. He had a whole separate doctor for his heart, one for his kidneys, one for the brain and a separate one for its _ feelings _ . He thought of his ma and how hospitals had worked back then. How she’d had to know everything; how she’d been all the doctors, at once. And the only one who could ever actually make him feel better.

Mr. Fury used words like _ strategy, uniform, contract.  _ He used  _ national security _ a lot. Steve couldn’t help but picture the men he’d watched bleed out on battlefields just a month ago, realizing that he was fighting the same damn fight he’d just escaped. Did war ever let up?

Then Fury had a new word:  _ Avengers _ .

When he’d signed Nick Fury’s papers, and there were a  _ lot  _ of them for someone who didn’t seem particularly  _ organized _ or concerned about things like  _ liabilities _ , he’d felt like a kid in grade school coming back to class after the Christmas break and signing the wrong year onto all his assignments.

~~ 194 ~~ 2012

~~ 19  ~~ 2012

~~ 1945 ~~ 2012

~~ 194  ~~ 2012

 

He had a hunch that at least half the papers were just autographs for Agent Coulson. At least, that’s what Natasha Romanov had told him out of the corner of her mouth during a particularly lengthy team meeting. 

And then suddenly Steve Rogers was fighting  _ aliens _ , like actual H.G. Wells  _ aliens _ , in an unrecognizable New York City before he even had a chance to pay respects to Sergeant Barnes’ empty grave. As alien blood splattered his shiny new shield and Howard Stark’s  _ son  _ chattered incessantly into the joint intercom and an angry doctor channeled his rage into a giant green animal, Steve had felt so hopelessly alone that he had almost cried. 

Instead, he let his mind go numb and threw the shield again. With force.

 

***

 

Steve felt oversized even in one of the biggest cities in the world. 

When he wasn’t killing monsters, he was killing time. It was a damn depressing fact, that all he had ever wished for, when he was sick, when he was in the foxholes, was for more time. Thirty, he’d asked for. Give me thirty years on this Earth and we’ll call it even. More time with Peggy, more time with Bucky, more time with a paintbrush in his hand and a sunset to paint. And now, all he wanted was to burn right through it to the end.

If there  _ was  _ an end. The doctors were getting back to him on that. 

He found some solace in bookstores. 

Steve didn’t go to Barnes and Noble – it was too overwhelming, the floor-to-ceiling books that he would never get around to no mo matter how hard he tried or how many years he had backlogged. He opted for a small indie (which meant independent [not Indian], he learned when Natasha told him “Indie food” was  _ not  _ a thing) bookstore in Brooklyn. Nothing fancy. Maybe a little hipster. But it wasn’t like he went to look at all the new books. They had a whole display of  _ All the Light We Cannot See. _ He read the inside cover. He moved along. It was too early to read a  _ historical fiction  _ novel on something that was still bleeding and real to him less than a month ago.

It would probably always be too early.

Steve perused the bookstore exclusively for books that he’d already read. Don’t worry – Nat already pointed out how counterintuitive it was on multiple occasions, but still, he went. Every other week, donning his brown leather jacket and a vintage Dodgers ball cap that had surely cost Tony an arm and a leg. He didn’t much like to think about how much money Stark had, or what he chose to spend it on. But Steve liked the bookstore because it was a place you could wander, where you were allowed to be lost. People didn’t bother him or ask too many questions. It was a good place for someone who never had anywhere to be.

He only looked at old books – ones that he’d read before the war or remembered Bucky or his ma reading. Never even flipping them open, he just liked to touch the covers; ensure that they were real, that he remembered something correctly about this life.  _ Lord of the Rings  _ was still around.  _ Brave New World _ , too.  _ Frankenstein _ , and  _ War and Peace _ , and everything Shakespeare that he’d hated as much as Bucky had loved.

They’re still here. They’re still here.

 

***

 

Steve Rogers was not baffled by the twenty-first century. He got the hang of text messages. The Internet was a decidedly good thing. He was only twenty-seven, after all. Still young enough to learn new things.

But it had its confusing moments.

“Do you watch  _ Planet Earth _ ?” Tony’d asked him one night when they ran into each other in the newly named Avengers Tower.

“I live on planet Earth,” Steve had replied, confused.

JARVIS had explained his error to him later that night while he lie awake.

 

***

 

You’d be surprised how much time you have on your hands if you only got called into work when the world was ending.

Steve made a long to-do list. He was pretty good about getting things done on it.

The tattoo was easy. He’d been surprised to see that the ink stayed in his ever-healing skin. A small blessing in this endless curse.

He went on tour with the President of the United States (a  _ Black  _ man! Steve was so excited he could barely contain himself. Thank God America had done at least something right while he was gone). They visited military bases and forts together, retracting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and every time, Steve gave his rehearsed little speech and signed autographs.

He recorded videos for middle schoolers in health class.

He joined the Russo brothers in a long-winded director’s commentary for their new movie, which was about him but starred somebody else and bent the truth.

He visited his mother’s grave. He talked to her a long while. And he came out to her. Out loud.  _ Bisexual, Ma.  _ It was another one of the blessings he’d been given. He had Taylor to thank for that one.

He attended a gay pride, too. Natasha came with him for that. “You shoudn’t be alone,” she’d said, though her saying it didn’t really change the fact. While they were there, she’d laughed at a scary bluish-blackish monster that was on some young kid’s poster.

“You know what that is?” she asked.

“No,” he’d admitted.

“It’s the Babadook! It’s this meme – you know what a meme is?” People were always doing that to him. He despised the question.  _ Do you know what that is?  _ If he knew the answer, he felt annoyed at people babying him. If he didn’t, it was a dark reminder that he could never quite catch up to the times. That he was always a second behind, a minute too late. And Steve Rogers was damn tired of being too late. 

But all he said was: “I live a floor below Barton. Take your best guess.”

Finally, he tasked himself with hunting down the remains of Bucky’s film negatives. There wasn’t much left of them, but the Barnes Family Foundation had donated some to the Smithsonian, and ol’ Bernie – he couldn’t believe – had saved a few as well. With the negatives, Steve posthumously published a neat black-and-white picture book destined for coffee tables and dusty shelves of Bucky’s life’s work. He donated all of the proceeds to organizations that helped veterans get back on their feet in New York and Fort Wayne, Indiana. He flipped through it whenever he forgot what Brooklyn had felt like all those years ago.

Ultimately, New York was too sad and Tony Stark was too much and JARVIS told him about a really great counselor at a VA hospital in D.C. who might help him with the battle fatigue. So Steve packed his things and hoped for the best.

  
  
  



	20. You know it's bad when you're on the same side as Carter

_Bucky  
_ November 8, 1943

 

“Jesus Christ, Bucky, that your third pack today?” Dum Dum asked him with an undeniable note of awe in his voice, discovering the spot where Bucky’d secluded himself and waltzing over sans invitation.

Bucky shrugged as he leaned over the wooden fence post and took another drag. “Dernier’s still making good on the poker game he lost last week. I got his smokes ration ‘til the third,” Bucky explained, not turning to look at Dum Dum. He knew his face had to be all splotchy from holding back tears all afternoon.

“Bet he’s dyin’ without ‘em,” Dugan replied, hands on his belly. Bucky must’ve missed supper.

“Pretty sure Steve was sneaking him his, he’ll be fine,” Bucky said, feeling sour all of a sudden. At Steve’s name, Dugan softened.

“Any word yet?”

“None.” Bucky sucked at the cigarette again and stared off into the distance.  _ Take the goddamn hint, would ya? _

Another once-over, and Dum Dum must have decided that Bucky wanted to be alone, because he turned and left him to his own devices. Namely, chain smoking until he knew for sure that Steve would be okay.

Steve was in bloody  _ Verona _ , which was at least temporarily within Allied territory, considering how the Italians were going, with the suspicious German doctor who’d only just shown up, getting an operation he knew  _ nothing  _ about and had signed away the right to his own cell tissue mid-fever. Bucky wasn’t even sure if three packs was going to cut it.

Bucky hadn’t asked much of Steve in their more than ten years of friendship. He hadn’t asked much of  _ anyone _ for that matter. He wasn’t asking G-d to survive the war. He wasn’t asking for him and Steve to be a … a couple, or something, or even for Steve to love him back. In his twenty-odd years on this Earth, all he’d ever asked for was Steve to be safe. If G-d could give him that, they’d be square. He’d take over for Sisyphus if he had to.

But in the wee hours of morning, against his every effort to convince him otherwise, Steve had signed his chicken-scratch John Hancock on a piece of paper with a government seal, and Peggy’d looked at him like he’d just lassoed the moon, and Bucky’d known right then and there that he’d never get what he asked for. He could convince Steve of a whole lotta things – to ride the big rides at Coney Island, to take his heart pills, even to kiss him, like the other night. But he knew, better than he knew that the sun would come up tomorrow or that all Nazi scum deserved to die that he’d never stood any chance at keeping Steve from a fight.

Still leaning against the fence in the heat, he pulled out a knife and twirled it artfully in one hand, flicked it open and closed. Steve Rogers. Brooklynite. Newsie. Baseball aficionado. Punk.  _ Super Soldier _ . He spat in the dirt.

Unconsciously, his right hand fluttered to the crook of his left elbow where that HYDRA bastard had poked him full of needles and skidded all the way down to his palm. He turned his hand over. The skin had healed too quickly. Feeling lost in every sense of the word, Bucky realized that he genuinely didn’t even know the back of his hand. 

He didn’t know what this  _ HYDRA  _ had done to him, and it scared him straight. Much as he didn’t like to admit, he felt stronger. He healed faster. His vision, which was already 20/20, perfect for a sniper, became impossibly better. His shots were cleaner.

It was his mind that worried him. There was a fog now. A hazy forgetfulness best dulled by Steve’s presence, which reminded him of the sights and smells of home. Bucky could count on Steve to point his gun straight. Point it at the right people. Bucky would shoot anywhere Steve told him.

But now Steve was being shackled into a foreign machine somewhere like in one of the dime novels Bucky devoured at home. In all honesty, Bucky always thought he would like the future. But as he waited with bated breath for Steve to return from their guinea pig experiments, he wasn’t so sure. He twisted his foot in his boot mechanically, massaging the long scar there where HYDRA had cut him open. He didn’t even bother looking at his thigh and the completely healed bullet wound from only a few weeks ago. And now Steve was doing this to himself, voluntarily. Letting them inject him, experiment on his blood and bones.

Didn’t Steve know that his blood was Bucky’s blood? That it wasn’t his alone to bargain with?

He let the tobacco chase the oxygen into his lungs again, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he could smoke ten packs a day and still wake up with his lungs feeling refreshed and expansive. He was different now. And soon, Steve would be too. Project Rebirth, they called it. But didn’t that imply that Steve had to be broken down – to  _ die – _ before he could be reborn? Skinny little Steve Rogers, his bones snapping like a  _ bird’s– _

Bucky thought of that last morning in Brooklyn. Steve tangled in clean sheets, pale even against the stark white bedding, shirtless in the heat but still doused in a sheen of sweat, morning dew on a particularly gentle flower. Well, Steve would surely be opposed to being compared to a flower, but that’s what Bucky saw there. Treasured, really. Even as the sunrise coming through the window had washed him out, Bucky couldn’t mistake the pink of his lips. He himself had come back at three in the morning after kissing some dame until neither of them could keep their eyes open anymore. It’d been fun, he supposed. Distracting at the very least. He’d walked home slow, trying to soak Brooklyn into his skin on that starless night. He wanted it to grow in his hair and fingernails.

He hadn’t slept at all that night, he remembered now. He’d sat on his twin bed, adjacent to Steve’s, with his feet planted on the crooked wooden floor. That way he’d be able to picture Steve’s bruised little chest rising and falling when he was over there, when he needed to remember why he enlisted or had to steady himself in a fight. He’d been trying to commit it to memory. Rising and falling. Rattling and shivering, but still rising and falling.

He’d slipped the sketches Steve had made him into his pocket, folding them with care, gulped down his second orange, and carefully left a note on the counter beside the last orange. If Steve’s ill health had any silver lining, it was that as Bucky shut the door of their apartment that morning and slipped out for what might’ve been the last time, he’d thought at least Steve’s bad lungs and trick knees would keep him there in New York where he belonged.

Of course, he’d been more wrong than he’d ever imagined. How stupid Bucky’d been, to think anything could’ve kept Steve from a fight. From  _ this  _ fight. And now he had ten chewed fingernails to prove it.

_ Oh, Steve. What are they doing to you? _

Bucky felt a stab of guilt, too. Because if he was being honest (and war made men honest), it wasn’t just that he was scared that Peggy and the Kraut would fuck Rogers up (which he was) or that Steve’s feeble little body wouldn’t be able to handle whatever it was they were doing to him (which was highly probable – Carter had said so herself, but she’d cheated. She’d said it when she was wearing red lipstick, and that was damn unfair, and they both knew it). It wasn’t even that the serum might  _ work _ and Steve would go into battle. It was… well, if the serum  _ cured  _ all his ailments… 

Bucky didn’t understand queerness very well. He didn’t hang around the trannies or the clubs or the other fairies. It was too dangerous. But he knew first and foremost it was a sin, and second it was a filthy disease that G-d gave to the godless, and even though Bucky was Jewish and couldn’t go to hell and all, the Old Testament said that men couldn’t, shouldn’t lie together like he and Steve had last night, even though it had felt real nice and sort of beautiful. 

The point was if the serum cured Steve of his queerness, Bucky was pretty he’d die on the spot. And yet he was sort of wishing for it, too. For Steve’s sake.

 

\---

 

He suddenly wished he had a watch; how much time had passed? He knew it didn’t look great – Bucky out here panicking, pacing, chain-smoking,  _ worried  _ about Steve while the rest of the guys were so relaxed. They thought it was  _ neat  _ for G-d’s sake. Not the end of everything. 

Rogers and Barnes, lifetime best friends. Like brothers, the 107th liked to say. But what else were they saying? Did they hear the friction in Steve’s tent last last night? Did they know? Were they gossiping now, with Bucky isolated and working himself up over Steve’s operation, that there might be something  _ more  _ there?

Morita came up to him, took his hat off and twisted what he had of a mustache (it was a contested issue amongst the men) for a time. Bucky made it clear he wasn’t interested in small talk.

A while later, a pair of red lips in the form of the revered Margaret Carter stepped to him. He leveled his gaze at her. She looked away, but when she spoke, it was obviously to him. There was no one else around.

“He’s alive,” she said matter-of-factly. “Just got the telegram. The serum worked. He’s – well, you’ll see. Just thought you ought to know.” And she was gone.

He knew she didn’t like him, and vice versa. He hadn’t exactly been subtle about his aversion to the super soldier serum, nor his outright disdain for her perpetual flirations with Steve. At the end of the day, he was territorial, and he knew it.

Still. This was war, lady. Did she  _ have  _ to bring so many tight dresses?

But he also thought she respected his undeniable loyalty to Steve. Really, their missions were more alike than they were different.

Fucking hell. Now he was sympathizing with  _ Carter _ . What had Steve done to them?

But he drank her words like a babe to a teat. Steve was okay. He was alive. For a moment, he let his head fall back with relief, eyes closed. They’d see another day. It was all the celebration he could muster before licking his lips and going back to camp, where he would sit and clean his guns and wait for the goddamn punk to come back to him.


	21. Look Who's Back (Sexy's Back)

_ Steve  
_ January 10, 2014

 

Washington, D.C. was growing on him. In some ways, the future was growing on him, too. Steve could tell, because he stopped saying things like ‘the future’ and started being, like, a participant in the present. And saying things like, ‘like.’ He was a real sociable guy where others were not – on the Metro, with the waitstaff at the diner on Jefferson, with the veteran at the post office (sometimes Steve shipped things to his own house just for an excuse to say hello, which was sad, but well). The Avengers counted as his friends, too, but he wasn’t sold on the idea of exclusively hanging out with other fucked-up, enhanced, PTSD-ridden superheroes. His therapist wasn’t a fan either, but hey. They were about the closest thing he had to family in this century.

He’d made a new friend. Well, he’d sort of stalked him and then found out the route of his morning run and then pretended that they ‘accidentally’ ran into each other.  
  
Basically, Sam Wilson had been  _ on his left, on his left, on his left  _ and then had quickly become something akin to his right hand man. Sam didn’t need to know the details.

Some inventions were good. He liked the Kindle. He didn’t understand why perfectly normal reusable grocery bags were cool, but he was really hoping the hipsters would get into glass milk bottles soon because buying a gallon at the grocery every other day was getting old. Because he listened to vinyl and drank drip coffee, Tony mailed him a shirt that said ORIGINAL HIPSTER. Steve would never tell him, but he got a real kick out of it and wore it around the apartment from time to time. Coffee was better in the twenty-first century (real coffee, not the fair trade organic soy-milk half-caff vanilla lavender honey light foam bullshit he saw others ordering). Food was better, people were busier, parents stricter. He thought of his old pre-serum lungs every time he saw a no-smoking sign. Polio was cured, so that was good.

Tuberculosis was also cured. 

Alas.

Parts of the 1940s were still with him. Bucky’s dog tags hung from his neck, barely concealed underneath his T-shirts, hovering right above his tattoo. Sam informed him that this was what the kids called “extra,” but Steve knew he wasn’t the only one. Sam kept Riley’s dog tags around his own neck, which made Steve feel better somehow. Peggy was alive, but she was married and in England and lost in her own head, and the more he visited her, the more he wished it was an old, frail Bucky in that hospital bed. So he stopped going.

The thought of wishing it was Bucky had made him feel too guilty. Dirty. How dare he wish someone else take her place? He felt guilty that he wished for Bucky instead, and guilty that he was the reason that Bucky never made it to old age, would never have his own hospital bed swarmed by grandchildren at the end of a long life. But he also felt guilty that Peggy had had to go on without him, especially after that final dispatch. 

He imagined Bucky old, sometimes. It passed the time. He’d be a crotchety old man, Steve was sure. A very  _ get-off-my-lawn  _ and  _ kids-these-days  _ kind of old man. But man, he’d love the twenty-first century. Bucky would’ve kept up so much better than Steve; he’d have one of them hipster haircuts and listen to electroswing and have a sleeve of tattoos covering his left arm. He would have an Instagram for the ages and he’d Uber everywhere and scoff at the absurd resurgence of speakeasies in a time where drinking was legal while downing his usual PBR from somewhere up high over the city. He’d loved high vantage points long before anyone asked him to shoot from them. 

Bucky would have made fun of him. For his khakis, his never ending dry spell, the fact that he still combed his hair like it was 1941. 

And the photography. Bucky was always good with a camera, but damn. They could’ve had a dark room in their apartment. Digital photography was already amazing, and with Bucky’s eye? The world was missing out. Steve was good about donating his recently acquired piles of money to charity, but once, on a whim, he went to Amazon-dot-com and bought a fancy DSLR camera. He thought it might remind him of Bucky. Or that he might be able to do something with it. But his shots were all garbage; Steve was in way over his head. So he stuck to drawing, but the cyclops of a camera still stared down at him from on top of the fridge. Just a little reminder, now and again. Like the coffee table book.

Like everything.

Jeez. Steve started smiling into his empty mug as he set it in the sink, thinking about the damn animal James Buchanan Barnes would be if he got a hold of  _ Tinder.  _

“You would’ve been a savage, Buck,” Steve said aloud to himself, fixing his disguise – sunglasses and a ball cap, Sam would disapprove – in the mirror by the front door before facing the day. Because as much as he would happily spend just about every waking hour thinking about Bucky, there was work to do. Fury’d been shot dead in his apartment. Project Insight was looking….morally dubious. Something was up.

_ Trust no one. _

He and Nat were going for a ride.

***

Natasha Romanov was the salve he didn’t know his muscles needed, the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He liked her an awful lot, in a platonic way, of course (almost all his feelings for women were platonic, now. He had Coulson to thank for that – not pretending to be straight anymore was a huge weight off his shoulders).

He’d always liked Nat – thought she was funny and honest right from the start, and he still had a soft spot for auburn hair – but they’d been working together far more closely as of late. That was what happened when the fearless leader you’d always trusted is suddenly being fired at by a masked assassin in your apartment. Nick Fury, God rest his soul, had thrown them both for a loop, and he and Nat had no one to trust but each other. There were too many unanswered questions bouncing around for Steve’s liking. Nat would at least know where to start.

***

“Hey, grandpa,” she greeted lazily, rolling down the tinted window of her car – one he didn’t recognize, of course. Nat never drove the same car twice.

“You do know I’m twenty-eight, right?”

“You seem a little mature for twenty-eight,” she teased, removing her sunglasses so he could see her face as he slipped into the passenger seat. 

“What can I say? I’m an old soul.”

She rolled her eyes at him. He waited for her to start driving, but she stood stock still.

“What?”

She looked down at his waist with a disapproving raise of her eyebrows. 

“My seatbelt? Really?”

“Put it on, Steve.”   
  
“I am 240 pounds of nearly unbreakable muscle. My body heals itself. I’m a  _ super soldier. _ ”

She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, then inspected the fingernails of her other hand. 

_ “Fine _ , _ ”  _ he grumbled, buckling up.  _ Safety first. _

He wished it were  _ just  _ a ride – that they were going to Five Guys, or upstate, off for art supplies or to the Jersey shore, even just window shopping. He wished they could just have an afternoon. But this was a business trip, if the stealth suits worn skin-tight under their civilian facades was anything to go by. Natasha’s message had been cryptic.  _ Suit up. We’re going for a ride. _ But they had to err on the side of secrecy these days. Nick Fury was dead, and it was only getting started.

As Natasha spoke, the screens on the inside of his Ray Bans lit up, illustrating her narrative. Tony’s tech never failed to impress him.

“There’s a lone operator,” she started, getting right down to it. She beat a lot of things (bad guys and the occasional alien, mostly), but around the bush was not one of them. A figure flashed on Steve’s screens, rotating all 360 degrees. “This is definitely our guy. He’s the killer who was after Fury; Stark and I ran some calibrations on his metal arm based on your shield’s data output–”

“My shield outputs data?”   


“From every throw,” she said quickly, like this was old news. He really  _ couldn’t  _ keep up. “And he’s been linked to a series of assassinations, domestic and foreign alike. Over the course of  _ decades.  _ They’re seemingly disconnected but all political power moves.”

“Any I might know?” Steve asked, feeling the effects of being a refugee of time. He read the  _ Times _ every day, but still there seemed to be political figureheads, government organizations, even  _ countries  _ he’d never seen before.

“You ever heard of JFK?”

“Shit.” Well that was one Steve knew.

(He thought he was handsome, too, but Steve kept that to himself.)

“ _ Steve _ ,” she said, eyebrows raised. He just shrugged.  _ What? _

What he liked about Nat was that she let him be. He cussed? Sure, she’d roll with it. He needed to ship three new punching bags to his apartment? Okay. He didn’t believe in white picket fences anymore? Well shoot, neither did she, thank you very much. Natasha had seen her share of shit, love, and loss, and in that way, they were a matched set.

“So what’s his game?” Steve asked, Cap creeping into his voice already. He couldn’t help it. Under his leather jacket was his shield’s harness – the shield was in the trunk. They were wearing civvies for now, but he was ready.

“So far, very little information. He’s a sniper. We don’t know who he’s working for, yet, or if he’s propelled purely by his own motivations. There have been… whisperings. In the intelligence community. Some say he’s a ghost story. Others believe he’s not one person, but many, acting under the same alias.”

“But…?”

“But I knew him, once,” she said, staring straight ahead. Steve wouldn’t have thought twice about it, except for the way Natasha accelerated when she said it. One second, they were doing a thrifty 75 mph, the next, Nat was hovering around 110. He would’ve told her to slow down if he didn’t know that he was indestructible and her reflexes were animal-quick. “I just didn’t know he was still around.”

“What’s his name?”

“I called him Sasha. I don’t think that’s his name, though. He was… they called him…” she sighed, defeated. “The Winter Soldier.”

Steve left her to her thoughts. Prodding Natasha was like putting two betta fish in the same tank. 

“Combat skills?” he asked eventually, sticking to pure, safe tactical talk.

“The metal arm for hand-to-hand. He’s strong, much like you. He speaks many languages. And his bullets never miss.”

“We’ll see about that.”

As if on cue, the back right tire blew out. Steve’s head whipped around in surprise as the car hitched, but Natasha never swerved. Her eyebrows lowered darkly with concentration as she directed the impacted vehicle to the side of the bridge, slowing it down considerably. She didn’t even flinch. If Steve didn’t have enhanced hearing, he probably wouldn’t have heard Nat’s quiet, “Right on time, aren’t you,  _ Soldat _ ?”

He looked at her with confusion, waiting for their next move.

Nat counted down on her fingers from five as the car hurtled forward. When her pinky finger met her palm, they each burst out their respective doors and tuck-and-rolled to standing positions, their clothes tearing to reveal their stealth suits underneath. It was a practiced move – Steve could appreciate their synchronization.

But not for long – there was an assassin at the other end of the street who was about to have a  _ very  _ bad day. As Nat’s car hurtled into the side of the bridge (why did no one just park their carsk? Steve didn’t understand superfolk), a figure in the distance stood silhouetted against the gray skyline, long dark hair dancing around a pale face mostly obscured by what could only be described as a black muzzle.  _ The Winter Soldier.  _ And he had a submachine trained on them. So that was fun.

“You didn’t mention the Winter Soldier was after  _ us _ ,” Steve said through gritted teeth as they both sprinted full-tilt toward the assassin.

Running  _ toward  _ armed killers? Damn, he  _ was _ rubbing off on her. 

No bullets rained down on them as they surged toward the Soldier, which was eerie. He was letting them get close, lying in wait, as exposed as one could be – though clearly armored, bulletproof himself. So this was going to come down to hand-to-hand. Face-to-face.

Steve’s favorite.

As asphalt disappeared under Steve’s legs, pumping more like machine than man, the Soldier raised his rifle. Steve had scooped the shield from the trunk, and now he reached over his shoulder to grab the disc and hurl it at the deadly soldier, right as the sounds of machine gun fire ripped through the air.

All three of them flinched at the sound, Steve noticed. A bunch of veterans, then.

And then the Soldier caught the shield. Like,  _ caught it,  _ caught it. Again. One-handed, with a bulky prosthetic arm made of some kind of metal, like Natasha had warned. There was no time for the shock of it, the unfamiliar pause as Steve realized the shield wasn’t ricocheting back to him as he surged after it. The Soldier inspected the shield for a second, then flung it back at Steve,  _ hard.  _

Steve’s arm absorbed the shock of the thing as he caught it stealthily from its handle, and he held it out in front of him, taking the bullets for what he hoped was him and Nat both.

The throw bought him enough time to jump the assassin. Steve went for the gun, kicking the semiauto out of the guy’s human right hand, the thumb making a definite snapping sound as Steve landed in a tight shoulder roll, well-timed with Natasha hurtling in as his backup, jumping in a well-practiced arc to bring her thighs around the Soldier’s throat. The Winter Soldier struggled but fought her off as Steve jumped back up, ready for the next go.

The Soldier had knives  _ everywhere.  _ Traffic stopped as they went at it, the Soldier throwing calculated jabs at Steve’s most vulnerable parts, the blade dusting Steve’s exposed throat. He swung his metal fist down with Steve pinned to the street under his right arm – Steve rolled away at the last second to hear the crunch of a metal fist shattering concrete where Steve’s face was a moment before.

Steve came back full force after that, pretending he wasn’t secretly enjoying this, the ol’ fight, the dance of death, the adrenaline, muscling his way through anything and everything. He barreled into the Soldier and threw a punch that landed, catching the assassin’s mask as he flipped over Steve. He caught one victorious glance at the mask as it bounced down the street and tumbled to a standstill at the Soldier’s shoes. Combat boots. Steve tracked the mask’s trajectory and let his eyes move up the assassin, flickering up to the pale face, the steel-blue eyes…

Steve squinted.

“Bucky?” he said, before his brain had even registered the impossibility of what he was seeing.

“Sasha,” Nat greeted somewhere behind him. Hers wasn’t a question.

The man looked at him coldly, eyes empty but still fixed on Steve.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” he asked so genuinely that Steve’s heart collapsed in on itself. Time itself collapsed – he was sixteen and twenty-eight and ninety-seven all at once, and Bucky Barnes was standing across from him, a little stabby, a little unkempt, a lot more hair, all beefed up and  _ made of metal, apparently  _ but jeez Louise.

In the moment it took Steve to leave and return to his body, the Winter Soldier put a bullet in Natasha’s thigh and ran.

What the  _ hell? _

***

“It was him, Sam. It was Bucky. I almost didn’t recognize him,” Steve said for the hundredth time since coming home from his debriefing with S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury. It was two in the morning, and he was wired, and Sam looked exhausted, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Sam to go home. “He didn’t even know his own name.”


	22. The Liberation

_ 32557038  
_ November 3-7, 1943

 

The crash of falling metal registered somewhere; there was a  _ clanking  _ and a grunt, muttered curses in a foreign language, yelling, the clattering of tools, the sudden cease of pain below, a wrist thudding to the table,  _ his wrist _ he realized too late, and boots on concrete. It didn’t matter, made no difference to him in his drug-addled state, whether they were inventing new torture devices or cocktails of amphetamines. He was resigned, because he was tired,  _ so tired _ , and the world had been divided into  _ pain  _ and  _ numbness…  _

“BUCK! WAKE UP!”

His head lolled, chin catching his chest, trying to form words but all he could do was salivate, words bubbling into nothingness on his tongue, never quite turning into anything coherent.

Numbers. He knew his numbers. He tried that instead.

“Bucky, it’s me, it’s Steve.”

Arms on his shoulders, not strong but firm – shaking him gently but urgently, breaking the dichotomy of  _ pain  _ and  _ numbness  _ with this third, new feeling.  _ Interest. _

“Steve,” he tried. It felt funny on his lips, but he knew that word, it was a name,  _ Steve. _

“Bucky, c’mon, Bucky,  _ please _ –”

Another sensation. Warmth. Pleasure, even. Something inside him danced at the word.  _ Bucky. _ He gurgled out his numbers again, faster, clearer, trying to say  _ I hear you _ and  _ the world is wider than pain and numbness. _

“Fuck, we don’t have  _ time _ ...” 

The voice was stressed. He didn’t like that much at all. That was when he remembered eyes – he had  _ eyes,  _ he could open his eyes. 

There was evidence of a scuffle, tables overturned and weapons on the floor, two unconscious men in black laying at funny angles on the floor, he would’ve laughed if he could swallow, tears brimming in his eyes because the light was too much, too bright, he’d been in the darkness so  _ long.  _ His pupils felt dilated with everything  _ too much _ , so he looked down at himself, curious what he would find there, what could possibly be left after the numb, the pain, the endless cycle. To his surprise, it was all there – arms, legs, uniform even. And above him, frowning and desperate, a sweaty, dust-covered boy with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen in his life.

There was a new feeling: horror.

What was something so beautiful doing in a place like this?

“What the  _ hell  _ did they dope you up with?” the boy said, voice hoarse, a cough audibly suppressed in the back of his throat. As the boy pulled the IV out of his wrist, he recited his numbers again. They were all he had. His numbers, over and over again. He wanted to say,  _ I remember you  _ or  _ don’t take your hands off me  _ or  _ thank you _ , but all he had was his lousy numbers. 32557038.

“I know, pal, I know. 32557038. Good job, you’re doing great, Buck, I just need you to come back to me.”

The boy spoke English, which was the language he knew, could make sense of. The words were no longer just beautiful pearls for him to suck on but lavish sentences, necklaces of meaning. He  _ understood. _

“Right,” he repeated, mouth dry. This made the boy, his rescuer, it was, it had to be–

He reached up and grabbed the boy suddenly by the collar, spooking him with his intensity. 

_ “Steve.” _

Steve cupped his face, just for a moment, his long, featherlight fingers grazing Bucky’s scruffy cheek for only a precious instant. No matter the brevity, the touch brought something to life in him. 

“Yes, Buck,  _ yes _ , welcome back,” Steve said with an obvious sigh of relief, shoulders relaxing even as he moved faster than Bucky could keep up to undo all his restraints. “Would love to catch up real soon, but we got a problem to take care of first. Namely, gettin’ you and your unit the  _ hell  _ out of here. You know where the exit is?”

Bucky wracked his brain, finally able to sit up, though the vertigo brought bile up his throat and he swayed where he sat.

“You got a beard now. Didn’t know you could grow a beard.”

Steve rolled his eyes, tapped his fingers at the inside of Bucky’s wrist to ground him again, that gentle ferocity becoming his trademark as he patiently but urgently coaxed information out of him. “Tease me about it later, jerk, we need to find our way out.”

“Out… what about, what about my men?” he said, working through it, testing the words in his mouth.

“Yes, your unit, Buck. I got them out. They’re safe. Now it’s our turn.”

He blinked; the way Steve was looking at him, he knew this was  _ important _ , but Christ his head was pounding. With a hard swallow, he bit back the nausea.

“Upstairs,” he finally managed, breath coming fast.

Without hesitation, Steve grabbed an abandoned HYDRA pistol off the floor, threw Bucky’s left arm around his bony shoulders, and started carrying both their weight down the hallway at an awkward but impressively fast limp with Gabe somewhere on their right. Bucky’s brain started catching up to him, able to carry more and more of his own weight as time passed and his legs started working again. He ignored the way they burned, the sharp pain in his foot.  _ Later _ , he thought.  _ First, get Steve outta here. _

“This way,” he directed, remembering. This was Johann Schmidt’s secret HYDRA labor camp, full of captured POWs harnessing some kind of otherworldly power, living in cages, eating moldy bread, digging their own graves. It was the kind of place where rats started chewing on you before you were even dead. The more he remembered, the stronger he became, the aches in his legs becoming non-issues as the faces of the other captured soldiers came back to him. Morita. Falsworth. Dum Dum. Goldberg. Alleva. Hearst. Stein. Bullock. Men who’d been stronger than him, more capable. Outlasted. He’d crumpled first, the walking pneumonia winning out in the end, and that had been what got him strapped to the operating table, alive enough for experimentation but too weak to push and continue work on the aircraft – or whatever the hell they were building. 

It didn’t escape his notice that whatever ghastly things they might have done to him on that table – well, the walking pneumonia should’ve been a death sentence, and his lungs felt fine now.

With a kind of one-track-mindedness, he led Steve directionally as Steve propelled them forward to the blaring of alarms, orange flashing lights illuminating their path as the overhead lights went out. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” they chanted together. Steve fired at a pair of low-level HYDRA goons as they rounded the corner in their direction. Few things could have helped Bucky regain his focus like watching Steve Rogers, little Stevie from Brooklyn, from home, from  _ art class _ , putting holes in real, flesh-and-blood men without hesitation.

It broke something in him. 

“LET’S GO,” he roared into Steve’s bad ear, remembering that tiny detail despite the smoke and fire, alarms and stomping of boots in every direction. Then there was a sound from below, a great, synchronized battle cry, men, Bucky’s men, revolting. They took the stairs two at a time. 

Battle raged on below. The 107th and other captured Allied units were unarmed but no less dangerous; Bucky watched as a chair leg went right through a man’s chest, hair pulling and nails clawing, grown men  _ biting  _ each other as HYDRA operatives fired indiscriminately into the crowd, howls of pain accompanied with maniacal, sick laughter, the kind of laughter a man can only make if he has been to hell and lived to see another day. While Bucky was taking it all in, he hadn’t noticed that Steve had shrugged out of his grasp and entered the fray,  _ leading the men _ .

Maybe he was on more drugs than he thought. Christ. With a shake of his head, he followed, falling into step behind Steve, finding his rightful place at his six.

The surge of men swarmed up the stairway, roughened and bloody, coughing and injured, but running for their lives nonetheless. Steve was making decidedly tactical decisions, splitting the men up strategically to keep each stairwell open, earning salutes from men he’d surely never met as he directed their traffic like he’d been preparing his whole life for this.

“Where do I go?” a black man with a southern drawl asked breathlessly. Steve pointed, and the man and six stragglers behind him fell into line and charged off in the direction he’d indicated.

“Go,  _ go, _ ” Steve commanded, the fires catching, growing, as the base began to crumble from the inside. Sweat beaded up on Bucky’s forehead, his upper lip, and he followed Steve like a shadow, too tired to argue with the fact that Steve was  _ half these guys’ size and had lungs that would give in this smoke any second.  _

The men went up, toward the light, toward fresh air, toward sea level and safety.  _ Out. _

Steve Rogers started taking the stairs down another level.

“What are you  _ doing? _ The exit’s that way,” Bucky said, feeling dumb as he pointed toward the ceiling.

“To kill a weed, you have to pull out the root,” Steve yelled back, suddenly poetic at the end of the world. “We’re going after Schmidt.”

“You just think of that?” Bucky called back, racing after him down the stairwell, the flashing alarms loud and in his face.

“The analogy or the plan to take out the HYDRA mastermind?”

“The  _ analogy _ , dumbass!” Bucky screamed, using the butt of an empty rifle to clock a guy right in the nose, finishing him off with his own knife.

“Had a lot of time to think!” Steve yelled back, doing something murderous at the other end of the hallway that Bucky couldn’t quite see through the smoke. Sprinting to catch up, he clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder – practically toppling him, whoops – and they ran off again, together, smoke filling their lungs with every step. 

Double doors opened into what must have been the center of the warehouse-turned-labor-camp and, in the middle of that.

A tall man – Johann Schmidt – stood beside the German scientist –  _ Zola _ , Bucky recognized – who had somehow beaten them here, perhaps through some kind of shortcut, and they were yelling back and forth, gesticulating with their hands. Steve ducked down, afraid of being seen, and Bucky did the same. They watched as Schmidt handed Zola something – a set of keys, maybe – and then the tall man pushed a lever, and Bucky watched as the catwalk before them – what appeared to be their only way out – began to separate. 

“RUN!” Steve yelled. Bucky, caught up in his own thoughts, mechanically followed orders, taking long strides and making the jump. He turned back, expecting Steve to be right behind him, but he was still on the other side of the widening gap, his breathing was hard and the smoke was choking him out.

Bucky looked at him with realization and fear written all over his wide eyes, his sweaty hair stuck to his forehead and a sheen of sweat reflecting the hellish light around them.

“There’s gotta be a rope or somethin’,” Bucky called, looking around him frantically.

“Just go! Get out of here!” Steve waved him off, looking dizzy.

“NO! Not without you!” Bucky cried. And in a moment that must have been powered by only sheer adrenaline that neither of them would be able to explain later, Steve backed up, made the sign of the cross and kissed his tags, and launched himself across the chasm. Bucky caught him, and with effort, he pulled Steve to his feet. There was no time to think about  _ odds  _ or  _ what-ifs  _ or any of that – instead, the two of them sprinted toward the door they’d seen the Germans disappear through, and found themselves in broad daylight under blue skies, the escaped troops circling the door and waiting for them at attention.

Bucky had never been so ecstatic to use his legs as he gulped in the fresh, Austrian air, deciduous  trees rising out of the ground, proud and upright, happy to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. His chest heaved, both hands flat on the Earth, sucking in the smell of dirt, the soft coolness of grass, the chirping of birds, the taste of pollen in the air.  _ Life. _

He hadn’t seen the sky in weeks. He couldn’t believe how  _ blue _ it was _ ,  _ it brought real tears stinging to his eyes.

“What is it?” Steve asked, hand folding like a broken wing over Bucky’s shoulder. He smiled into the touch, looked up at Steve towering over his hunched figure with tears streaming unabashedly down his cheeks.

“The sky,” said Bucky. “Look at the motherfucking sky, Stevie.”

When Steve knew Bucky was going to be okay – and he made damn well sure, Bucky could see the evaluating look in his eye, the worry lines disappear when he realized they were tears of joy – Steve pulled out his commanding voice (and where had  _ that  _ could from, anyway?) and gathered the crowd of troops, silencing them all with just a look. In a way that somehow didn’t surprise Bucky at all, Steve looked comfortable leading, and the men looked to him with respect.

He’d always known Steve was destined for greatness. Of course he’d known. The kid had a heart four times the size of anyone else Bucky’d ever met, the kind of humble charm you could only get from being raised by Sarah Rogers, and a knack for creativity, the kind that could get thousands of men safely out of a besieged HYDRA base deep across enemy lines. 

But at the same time, it was truly bizarre to see all these men, strangers and friends who spoke a hundred languages, came from wild families and tame families and no families, all walks of life represented, with a million reasons for being in this war, looking up to Steve for their next order.

“What do we do, Captain America?” the man Bucky remembered to be Morita called out, a hand cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice. There were four hundred men there, after all.

_ Captain America? _

“We’re going to march in formation back to the camp near Azzano. That’s where Colonel Phillips is. He’ll know what to do.”

The people’s captain. The rags-to-riches, American-dream-loving orphan with something to prove and a heart of gold. Ranked not because of his fancy military school or a badge of honor, but because he was a natural-born leader one couldn’t help but follow. Because his eyes said  _ trust me  _ and one felt compelled to because no one as small and sickly as him had so obviously willed himself into survival. 

They didn’t talk much on the way back to the main camp. But whenever Steve looked over at Bucky, for reassurance or companionship or just to make sure that he was still there, Bucky conjured up a smile for him and let him know:  _ I’m following you. _

\---

As they marched back, it didn’t escape Bucky’s notice that Steve was becoming feverish. They had no food whatsoever, and no water either. Some of the men took their chances with streams they passed, but when Steve bent down to drink, Bucky put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. No way was that punk’s immune system going to survive whatever the hell was in that water without an iodine tab to make it safe.

“Stevie, you can’t drink that.”

“I gotta, Buck, I’m losin’ my mind,” Steve pleaded, already kneeling in the grass. They hadn’t even been able to tend to his wounds, yet, with fear that German reinforcements might be on their tail. 

It killed him to do it. It absolutely destroyed him. But Bucky shook his head, firm. “I can’t let you,” he whispered. Steve looked near collapse, so Bucky helped him up, feeling miserable. He did the same thing the next day, and the next. Steve looked weaker and weaker with each passing minute. But he  _ knew  _ they had to be close. They had to be.

\---

The next day, they found a completely empty village in the Austrian countryside. It looked like people had left in a hurry, taking only their valuables with them. It reminded Bucky of the Jews who ran out of time to even watch their bread rise. He swallowed, his own throat feeling rough and dry.

As the men explored, somber and exhausted, Falsworth’s voice hooted across what must have been the main square. “A well! There’s a well, boys!”

Bucky threw Steve over his back and ran toward the water.

\---

To keep Steve’s mind off the fever and the pain, Bucky tried keeping conversation with him, especially during his most lucid moments. 

“So, what’s with the Captain America thing, huh?” he asked him as they marched side-by-side. It was hard to find them  _ not  _ together, to be honest.

Steve smiled. “Couldn’t think of a good codename. I needed ‘em to listen to me. Private Rogers wasn’t gonna cut it. And I didn’t wanna get Pegs in trouble and all.”

“Not even Captain Smith?”

“No.”

“Captain Hook?”

Steve glared.

“Captain America it is,” Bucky said, tussling Steve’s hair. Steve glared harder, and then replaced his helmet.

\---

After Steve collapsed at the camp, Bucky was a fidgety wreck. He’d come close to losing a Steve a number of times – waiting at his bedside while he wheezed and moaned was nothing new – but this was somehow different. Becca wasn’t here to bring him soup and make sure they  _ both  _ ate. There was no hospital down the road, no pharmacy around the corner. Not even a plot to bury him in, if it came to that.

While Dolly was out, Bucky managed to sneak into the medic tent and card his fingers through Steve’s hair, smoking and saying sweet-nothings to him. They’d only had one kiss, and it’d been a messy one at that, but it changed Bucky all over. He couldn’t lose him now. Not now that they’d finally,  _ finally  _ been honest with each other. 

As Bucky ran his chewed-up, dirty fingernails through Steve’s matted hair – the kid had wracked up an impressive fever that refused to break – he listened to Steve mumble a name.  _ Marley _ , he whispered.  _ Marley that you? Is the 107th okay? _

“Shhh,” Bucky had tried to comfort, though there was no reaching Steve when he was like this. “There, there, honey.” Bucky didn’t understand. He’d had walking pneumonia, too. And his thigh wound had still been recovering.  _ And  _ Zola had been experimenting on him. He should surely be in the bed next to Steve’s. Yet he was feeling, not only healthy, but strong. Stronger than before. 

Feeling confused and emboldened and maybe something else, Bucky peered around, making sure no one was there – it was late, after all – and switched out one of his tags for Steve’s. It was an old myth, that if someone else was wearing your tag, you couldn’t die. Bucky was running out of favors with G-d. He’d never been a superstitious man, and yet.

Maybe if he just wore Steve’s tag ‘round his neck for a few days, he would be okay.

“Knock, knock,” came a British voice that Bucky knew to be Carter’s. Weren’t many women around here, and none who sounded quite as posh as that dame. Irritated, he pressed his lips to Steve’s forehead and slipped out the back of the tent.


	23. Reconstruction (the “post-Civil War” pun no one asked for)

June 27, 2016

_Ulyana_

Ulyana liked to think herself a relatively compassionate person. She went to church on Sundays. She helped  _ мама  _ raise her brothers while  _ Папа _ worked. She put herself through university and knew what it was like to work for what you had. She was understanding when her sister came out the closet. She was patient with the customers at the motel, when they needed extra pillows, when they demanded different rooms and more tiny shampoos.

But tonight was testing her patience.

Working the front desk was never really her favorite, but she was saving up for a girl’s trip to Moscow, and Papa paid her double to work in his motel what any restaurant nearby would.

_ Servis z posmishkoyu,  _ she thought to herself.  _ Service with a smile _ . Like Mother always said.

It was 11:53 pm and Yarik wasn’t texting her back (which was fine, really, he was probably stuck in, like, traffic –  _ shcho b ne bulo, whatever _ ) and her gum had gone all flavorless and she was just thinking about the precise give of her mattress and what she wouldn’t give to flop onto it right about now when two enormous, beat-up Ken dolls in ridiculous outfits stumbled through the automatic doors and out of the rain.

Father, son, and the Holy Spirit.

They looked like the kind of white boys who normally arrived in Hawaiian shirts with cameras ‘round their necks and came back from a day of doing whatever the hell it was tourists did that got them such horrible sunburns, which were admittedly hard to come by in the Ukraine. They were distinctly American, except they weren’t wearing ball caps or sunglasses or anything. They were wearing… tactical gear. Like, skin-tight bullet proof getups that she’d only seen on TV or on superheroes… 

Armor wasn’t in fashion, was it? 

Ulyana had an inkling about who had just barged into her papa’s motel. But if she wasn’t going to get paid extra for dealing with their bullshit, then they were going to be treated like everybody else.

The taller one was blond, his hair plastered to his forehead from the rain and a jaw line that made Ulyana forget her first name; he was supporting the weight – subtly, the way Mama had let her grandfather  _ think  _ he was walking without help in his final, stubborn years – of another tall, disheveled, dark-haired man who looked remarkably like a soaked stray cat. He had the wild eyes and frown and thinness, at least. The blond beamed, the brunette looked moderately murderous, and both seemed like they could easily bench press her one-handed, which was significant, because the long-haired one only had his right hand – his left shoulder was heavily bandaged, oily dark stains seeping through the gauze. Hell, she’d be murderous too if someone she’d just had her arm ripped off.

Still, Ulyana had been through some shit and wasn’t going to let her guard down. While one hand rested on the desk, close to the phone in case she needed to call the police, the other rested on the pistol her family kept loaded under the counter. For emergencies only.

It dawned on her a few seconds too late that she was probably supposed to say something. But what do you say when something like  _ that  _ stumbles in? Thankfully, she didn’t have to figure it out; the sopping wet blond beefcake spoke first.

“Good evening, ma’am. Sorry to bother you so late.” Blondie  _ wrung his hands  _ like they were in  _ Leave It To Beaver  _ or something. “We’re hoping you might have an open room for a couple of geezers like ourselves.”

Ulyana raised an eyebrow at Mary Murderous. He couldn’t be older than twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight. Neither could Blondie for that matter. The dark-haired one just shrugged at her, like he didn’t know what Blondie was on about either. Well, she’d understood most of what Blondie had said. 

“We have two rooms,” she said, eyeing the puddles forming around each pair of black boots. Great. “Name, please?”

“Francis,” the blond said. “I’m Francis. And this is…”

“Edward.” Ulyana wanted to gaze deadpan to a camera like in  _ The Office. _ Francis and Edward? Might as well just call them Bert and Ernie. But hey – at least she wasn’t thinking about Yarik anymore…

Dammit.

“Edward,” Blondie agreed. Even when he was lying, the guy looked like he’d swallowed the goddamn sun.

“Sure,” she said, pulling up the room availability on the desktop and questioning her decision to let these huge, dripping, suspiciously luggage-less vagabonds stay at her father’s motel. “Let me guess: you pay cash?”

The blond gave a cheeky, close-lipped grimace and rocked back on his heels. That meant  _ yes. _ The dark one face-palmed with his remaining hand. So this was how it was gonna be.

_ “Ya takozh,”  _ she muttered to herself.  _ Me, too. _

“He may be charming, but he’s not subtle,” the dark man replied in perfect Ukrainian. Ulyana straightened, eyes wide – so did Blondie, who seemed surprised that his alleycat had acquired impeccable bilinguality. She could count only a handful of times an American had responded to her in Ukrainian (well, Russian was close enough). And she’d worked the front desk a  _ long  _ time. Besides, most of the Americans who spoke her language were either horny Peace Corps volunteers or douchebags on a weekend-trip from study abroad. Raccoon-eyes didn’t really fit either bill, what with his bulletproof vest, long lanky hair, and the dark bags under his eyes. 

She liked him.

“ _ And please, can we have just the one room? _  he asked in her tongue, more quietly and less sure this time. Blondie rubbed the back of his neck, clearly not understanding. Ulyana shrugged and returned one of the plastic key cards to the counter. It wasn’t any of her business what her father’s customers did on their holiday.

_ “Zvychayno. _ ” _ Of course. _ When Blondie started looking between them like he was watching the most confusing match of tennis he’d ever seen, she smiled. Thinking she was asking for pay, the Blond dumped a rather impressive pile of American dollars on the counter. “He say he want to share the room with you. One room okay?” 

Blondie looked over at Racoon-eyes like he was watching wild dolphins do backflips. “That true, Buck?” he whispered, like God Himself might hear the hopefulness in his voice and take it all away with a snap of his fingers. Racoon-eyes – _‘Edward’_ – looked at his lap, then up at _her_ for help. Ulyana just licked her lips and looked back at the computer. _I don’t think so, Racoon-eyes. He’s your problem, not mine._

The old keyboard  _ clicked  _ and  _ clacked,  _ and Ulyana handed the blond his key and said, “Room 12” in English for his sake, then “ _ down the hall to your left _ ” in Ukrainian because ‘Edward’ was cute and hell, Yarik wasn’t in traffic and they both knew it.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the bumbling blond blurted as the other dragged him down the hall by his elbow. Ulyana went to fetch the mop. Couldn’t have muddy rain water _and_ blood on Papa’s floors. 

If she heard giggling down the hall – which she didn’t – she definitely  _ didn’t _ smile like an idiot into her mop. 

Got it?

 

***

 

_ Steve _

 

Well, that was a hell of a last three days.

Steve watched Bucky sleep in the full bed, sprawled across both sides in a way that was suddenly familiar. More importantly, it was a sign that Bucky felt safe. But Steve was somehow still not fully able to process the fact that Bucky was even  _ here _ ,  _ sleeping, alive.  _ He could really use a shot of whiskey right about now to calm his nerves, but the fire in his veins would have to suffice. Sam and company were free from the Raft ( Steve had originally planned the break-out for the two of them, but  Bucky'd had a point when he said, “Sure, send in the internationally wanted one-armed assassin, dumbass. I'm staying on the plane, you go have fun,” and  _ gave him a little double-pat on the cheek,  _ spurring Steve to think: what the hell?) But hopefully those guys were en route to their respective safehouses even now. But Steve didn’t have one of those, and the safehouse Bucky’d made for himself in Bucharest had been, uh, emphatically breached, and that left a couple of super soldiers alone in the world with nowhere to go, in at least moderate need of medical attention, in a seemingly random motel in the middle of the Ukraine.

Instead of drinking, Steve lumbered to the bathroom with heavy steps, stripped off his stealth suit, feeling dirty in a way that had nothing to do with grime or sweat and everything to do with peeling back layers of Stark tech, and hovered in the low-pressure water in the tiny shower of the shitty motel with the nice, maybe-flirting-with-Bucky concierge under the aliases of Francis and Edward. 

No, really. Everything was fine.

It was. It was  _ fine.  _ Bucky was safe,  _ safe _ , and he hadn’t quite shed the Winter Soldier but he was remembering things, speaking  _ Ukrainian _ apparently. Like, everything was  _ fucked _ , obviously, with the Accords, the Avengers in pieces, and he didn’t even know if Stark would get his package for crying out loud, but they escaped so it was going to be okay. It had to be. Sure, he’d lost about ninety percent of his friends in one go, broke the law (which, y’know, he  _ did,  _ but he wasn’t exactly proud of it) and now had the love of his life who also happened to be the on-the-lam, ex-HYDRA-assassin POW James B. Barnes, who he had not the first  _ clue  _ how to help, even though all he wanted to  _ do  _ was help, and by the time Steve toweled off in the bathroom with the peeling yellow paint, he’d had to put both hands up against the wall and do some breathing exercises that Sam taught him.

He was so goddamn alone, just him and the wet  _ drip-drip  _ of the shower that wouldn’t quite turn off.

It was selfish, but Steve couldn’t bear the loneliness of decisions that were finally catching up to him after days of operating on only adrenaline and caffeine. He’d been all over the world. He’d thrown punches at his friends. Colonel Rhodes was paralyzed from the waist down. Zemo had tricked them all. And the world was bigger and more terrifying than Steve Rogers had ever signed up for when he wrote that letter to FDR in ‘43. So he did the only thing he could think of, and gently touched Bucky’s good shoulder, startling him awake.

It wasn’t Steve’s best idea. Bucky took some calming down. But Steve just couldn’t be  _ alone. _

It was only later, as they laid in the sheets and laughed with a kind of beautiful backwards triumph and stared at the ceiling, that it struck Steve that no one born on this side of 1990 was likely to be Francis  _ or  _ Edward. He started to laugh. When Steve shared this, Bucky’d laughed harder, which was all he’d ever really wanted, anyhow.

Jeez. By the miracle of all miracles, they were together. Bucky had a few live wires poking out of his shoulder that shocked Steve occasionally, but overall, they were in one piece. Tony might never talk to him again, but Sergeant Barnes was a laughing, shirtless wreck in Steve’s bed and, like always, that was enough.

“How did you come back to me?” Steve asked, hoping Bucky would know what he meant. Bucky’s brain was… glitchy. How glitchy, Steve wasn’t sure yet (and he wasn’t damn likely to bring in another psychiatrist anytime soon, Christ). Bucky mostly talked like his old self except when he spoke in Russian, which wasn’t a great sign for his mental state, or like a robot, which was infinitely worse. “I mean _ you _ , Bucky. How’d ya fight the brainwashing and all those HYDRA cronies and come back to me like this?”

“You’re the one who found me mindin’ my own business in Romania.”

“You know what I mean.”

Bucky leaned over the side of the bed, then, and silently reached into his bag, a plain black duffel that Steve knew was filled with guns. It should have worried him, he supposed. He could hear Sam clucking his tongue at him in his head. But Sam wasn’t here – he was lying a false trail south to keep Tony and company at bay and off their scent, and Steve couldn’t bring himself to sweat it. Mostly.

Was he a bad person if he tensed just a little? Well, he’d open that door later.

“You flinched,” Bucky said. A statement, not a question.

“No, I didn’t,” Steve lied, even though he knew lying to Bucky was futile.

They’d open that door now, then.

“You did,” Bucky replied, his voice flat. He tilted his head, evaluating Steve. Not angry. Just curiously surprised. “You’re afraid of me.” Another not-question. Words took Bucky a long time, but they always seemed to come out okay.

“No, Bucky,” Steve said, and that wasn’t a lie. He put his hand on top of Bucky’s where it rested on Buck’s knee, and looked him in the eye. “I wasn’t afraid of you on the helicarrier, and I’m not afraid of you now. I have no reason to be. I feel safe with you.”

At that, Bucky closed his eyes. “A little wariness is a good thing, Rogers.”

“I haven’t been anything short of reckless since 1918, so you’re a damn idiot if you think I’m stopping now.”   


“You  _ are  _ a reckless son-of-a-bitch,” Bucky conceded, smiling but still keeping his eyes closed. Carefully, Steve moved his hand up Bucky’s wrist, just his index finger tracing his veins up the length of his arm, his shoulder, up the thick of his neck to cup his jaw. Bucky’s breath hitched, ever-so-slightly. He opened his steel gray eyes.

“Don’t talk about my Ma like that,” Steve said, but his face was smiling.

“God rest her soul,” Bucky smiled back. Steve nodded, and dropped his hand.

Bucky reached back into the duffel, then, and didn’t pull out a Glock (duh) but a notebook, a black Moleskine overflowing with multi-colored sticky-notes. Some was written in Russian. Most, English. Steve even thought he saw Mandarin characters in there. Steve made out a few labels.  _ SISTER. NEW YORK CITY. WORLD WAR II. THINGS THAT ARE NOT TRUE.  _

_ STEVE. _

Without any restraint, Bucky shoved it into Steve’s hands and nodded at him –  _ go on. _

Steve opened the notebook in his lap. It was full of sticky notes, sketches, bits of newspaper and tabloids and (probably stolen, Steve sighed) pages ripped from library books, though most of those were Hungarian. There were journal entries in frantic, shaky but distinct loopy handwriting. Sometimes the handwriting changed, though, into blocky letters written in all-caps, and then it would go back to the familiar loops. He could picture Bucky scribbling things down, crossing them out, rocking back and forth somewhere dark and damp with the notebook clutched to his chest.

Steve read bits and pieces, not wishing to be invasive but clearly supposed to be absorbing something from this. The process, maybe. This collage of memories –  _ this  _ was how Bucky came back to him.

_ MAYBE HAD A SISTER NOT SURE STARTED WITH A B _

_ BEATRICE _ _   
_ _ BIANCA _

_ BRENNA _

_ BRITNEY _

_ B- _

_ B- _

_ BE- _

_ BBBBBBBBB _

 

_ HAD A GOOD DAY ATE A FRUIT  _

_ COULDN’T TASTE IT BUT LOOKED NICE, NO BRUISES _

_ MA USED TO SAY THE MORE COLORS ON MY PLATE THE BETTER _ _   
_ _ MAYBE TOMORROW I WILL EAT THE WHOLE RAINBOW _

 

_ THE MAN AT THE STORE SAID HAPPY NEW YEAR _

_ WHAT YEAR IS IT? _

 

Steve had enough. He flipped to the front page.

_ This Journal Belongs To: James Buchanan Barnes.  _

“I love you,” Steve blurted. He couldn’t help it. Time wasn’t something he was interested in wasting these days, and it was true, after all. The way Bucky’s head snapped around, though, Steve knew he’d said the wrong thing. “I mean, I love having you back,” he recovered lamely, sighing and dropping the notebook lightly on the bed. 

Bucky hummed back. In acknowledgment or agreement, Steve wasn’t sure. 

“What are you going to do with me?” Bucky finally asked, closing the notebook with a tenderness that shook Steve to his core, placing it delicately back into his bag. Bucky’s treasures, Steve realized.

“Whatever you think is best,” Steve admitted, crawling into the bed with Bucky. This was familiar. Seventy-odd years later, and something was finally familiar.

“Well, you’re a fugitive,” Bucky pointed out, unconsciously shifting closer to Steve.

“Yes.”

“Always knew you would be.” Steve kicked him under the covers, and Bucky let out a throaty laugh, inching closer still. “You know I’m dangerous, right?”

“ _ Shh _ ,” Steve whispered. “Can we do this tomorrow? Later? Never?”

“Steve…”

“You’re not the only one who’s dangerous, pal. I can snap bones with my bare hands. That’s pretty serious business. Plus, I have a Hulk.”

“A hulk?”

“Nevermind,” Steve said, resisting a chuckle. That he could explain another day. They had lots of days, now. He hoped.

“That’s exactly it, Stevie. My  _ mind.  _ The asset… he’s in here. With me. We switch back and forth, sorta. A couple of trigger words and I can… he can… and… and… mmmph,” Bucky faltered as Steve gently, oh-so-gently pulled his injured, hurting best friend against his chest. There was nothing romantic in it, just warmth, just a slow building need to be pressed together, fingers prodding against Bucky’s stomach, touch to remind him that he was  _ here _ . Real. Not a dream.

Not a nightmare.

They lay like that for a long time. Steve didn’t know who fell asleep first. It didn’t really matter, anyhow.

 

***

 

_ Ulyana _

 

Yarik texted her back at 2:34 am. Drunk. 

Ulyana rolled her eyes, tapped her foot against the desk a few times for good measure, and sent him back a nude from last week. 

She had to find  _ something  _ to pass the time.

She looked up from her desk with a start as Blondie rolled into the lobby, barefoot and shirtless with only a pair of gray sweatpants on, hugging his hips.

God bless  _ America. _

“Can I help you?”

His lips curled up on one side. “Can’t sleep,” he said.  _ So you come here to annoy me?  _ she thought but didn’t say. He might’ve paid in cash, but he paid. Service with a smile.

“Racoon-eyes make you sad?”

“What?”

_ Fuck. _

 

***

_Steve_

 

Steve returned from the lobby with a cup of their freshly-brewed complementary coffee and a guilty pit in his stomach for bothering the nice lady. He’d leave her a tip tomorrow. 

He paced the room as Bucky slept. The full stress – the full impact of what had just transpired was finally catching up with him, and he couldn’t  _ breathe. _

He had located Bucky. He had found him in time. The race against the clock was over. Bucky was  _ safe _ , his chest rising and falling  _ right there _ , and this was  _ great _ , Bucky remembered him, it was going to be okay. 

So why was his chest constricting?

Obviously everything was fucked, the Sokovia Accords were in shambles and Earth’s greatest defender – his first twenty-first century friend, the first person he ever came out to – wanted him, y’know, dead, and Rhodes was, well. Steve had done it – he’d split his friends, the only family he’d managed in this caffeinated, high-speed blur of a century that gave him whiplash at least eight times a day. They’d  _ hurt each other because of him.  _

Looking at Bucky should be helping. Bucky should be tethering him to reality, they  _ escaped  _ this was a good thing, was what he had wanted, it was going to be okay.

How many more times could he think it before he’d start believing it?

Steve Rogers was a bad liar. He couldn’t even fool himself. 

Suddenly, he felt so young.

What was he going to do?

Bucky stirred in the bed and it wasn’t until then that Steve realized he was hyperventilating, his hands white-knuckling the back of the desk chair, breath throbbing in and out of him, tears staining his cheeks, his chest was  _ heaving– _

Without question, without a word, Bucky silently stood and wrapped himself as best as a one-armed man with live wires sticking out of his shoulder could wrap himself around him until Steve’s panting slowed. It might’ve been minutes. It felt like hours.

Just as Steve opened his mouth to say something grateful to Bucky, his phone rang. It was an international number. Bucky looked into his eyes, a question –  _ are you good to take this?  _ – so Steve swallowed and nodded, coughing a little to clear his throat.

He clicked the green button with Bucky’s eyes taking in his every move.

“Your Highness,” Steve breathed.

 

***

_Ulyana_

 

Ulyana might’ve maybe  _ maybe  _ been a little disappointed that the mystery men, with their dripping armor and loving gazes and big shoulders, disappeared out the side door of the hotel during the night. Francis and Edward. Yeah, right.

Their plastic key was left on the desk; beside it, a one-hundred dollar bill and a note in shaky, looping Ukrainian:

_ You should break up with Yarik, by the way. Seems like a prick. _

She snatched the note off the desk and looked around the room, embarrassed. With a satisfying crinkling sound, she crumpled the note and shoved it in the pocket of her skinny jeans, glaring as she took the one-hundred dollar bill against her better judgment. 

Ten minutes later, she let out an agitated noise, pulled out her iPhone, and deleted Yarik from her contacts.

Damn them.


	24. Steve's Here

_ Bucky  
_ October 9, 1943

 

He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t fucking believe it. After everything he’d done, every enlistment office he’d bribed (“Do not let Rogers, Steven enlist here, you got it?” _ ) _ , every deal he made with the devil, every letter, every kill, every clean shot through the skull, and he hadn’t been able to keep him safe.

Steve was here. 

In Europe. In the biggest bloodbath in human history. He knew, even then, that men and women would write books about this war. Love stories, biographies, conspiracy theories. Policies, declarations of human rights, heartfelt speeches,  _ never agains.  _ This, just like the last world war, would be dubbed  _ the war to end all wars _ , and Bucky knew, even then, that war would never stop. That the poor of the world would continue, indefinitely, to die on battlefields soaked in their own blood and sweat and shit, a sickening distraction from the way pompous men sat in their castles and mansions and penthouses, drinking and stuffing themselves with fancy desserts. It was the biggest waste of human potential the world had ever seen, and Bucky Barnes was perched precariously in the center of it. He’d had one goal. Keep Steve safe. 

And now he was leaving Steve behind again – they were always missing each other, weren’t they? – his rifle and his canteen bumping heavily against his thighs in a kind of soothing, alternating rhythm. He was marching to Azzano, where he heard rumors that Allied troops were being decimated by the Germans. Steve, thankfully, had been kept behind at the main camp for kitchen and medical duties.  _ Chores, _ as his mother would’ve called them. But it didn’t really matter. If Steve wasn’t sent into this battle, it would be the next one. Or the one after that. It was the kind of war with no end in sight. And G-d, now Steve was  _ here _ , on the wrong side of the Atlantic, the cocky son-of-a-bitch thought he could take on Hitler single-handedly. Why did Steve always have to feel so… so important? Couldn’t Bucky’s love just be enough for once? Enough to keep him at home with his sketchbooks, somewhere safe and quiet and pretty? 

Steve used to paint rivers, and now the rivers were turning  _ red.  _

The place where the German shrapnel had grazed his thigh ached, and his stomach rumbled. He swallowed a mouthful of water as if that would help either pain without missing a step. He was a Sergeant now, after all. Couldn’t be missing steps. Or having romantic thoughts toward one of the privates in an adjacent unit. Well, nobody’s perfect.

Honestly, he shouldn’t be surprised that Steve made it over here. He knew Steve, and if he set his mind on something, he couldn’t let it go. _ Of course  _ he had defied the cosmic webs Bucky had spun to keep him safe;  _ of course  _ he had flipped the universe itself inside out; of course he had escaped the karmic trap Bucky had set so carefully for him. Bucky’d prayed to every G-d he knew, on every constellation, and Steve had just barreled right through it. This was Steven Grant Rogers we were talking about. He had a way of bending the universe toward him.

The boys took to Steve once Bucky introduced him to his inner circle, which was good. Men defended their brothers. The better-liked Steve was, the better chance he had at being protected when the bullets came. If the 107th came back without Bucky in its ranks, at least someone might look after Steve. Dum Dum, maybe. Even if just as a favor to Bucky’s memory.

They marched on, and Bucky let his mind wander dangerously further into territories he generally avoided these days: hope. Imagining him and Steve in new places. Not the cramped streets of Brooklyn but somewhere bigger, somewhere that could contain Steve’s ego.

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking of such things. It was just  _ one  _ kiss, after all. It wasn’t like they were  _ married.  _ It was just that he’d planned it all out. Steve was supposed to tell his kids and his pretty wife ( _ not  _ Carter) about what it felt like when the war was over, and they’d all visit Bucky’s grave at Arlington. Steve would say, “That’s him, son. That’s my best friend. Gave his life for this country.” And it wouldn’t quite be growing old with Steve, not the way he really wanted, anyway, but it was close. 

And the universe couldn’t even give him that.

_ Ugh.  _ He couldn’t stop dwelling on it. His heart thumped with it. His boots marched to it. It was terribly cliché in every sense of the word. But the sun rose and fell with it.  _ Steve, Steve, Steve. _

Even when the Germans had them surrounded:  _ Steve. _

When the Germans with the funny-lookin’ snake-skulls killed the other Germans and started rounding up the Allied soldiers one by one:  _ Steve. _

When HYDRA marched the captured units through treacherous wilderness with the muzzles of their guns pointed at their backs:  _ Steve. _

When Dernier said, “You know, no one ever comes back from the isolation ward,”:  _ Steve. _

When the pneumonia became too much and his knees buckled from exertion:  _ Steve _ .

When a male voice said, in English, as if for his benefit, “Round up the sick and the Jewish,” and he fit the bill on both counts:  _ Steve. _


	25. Wakanda, or as Steve calls it, The Future 2.0

_Steve  
_ June 27, 2018

 

The coordinates didn’t make sense. Steve knew he hadn’t flown a plane in a while, sure, but his vision was sharp and even with Bucky’s warm body humming beside him, he wasn’t  _ completely  _ distracted. The coordinates didn’t make  _ sense.  _

“We’re gonna hit the trees,” Steve said, matter-of-factly. The Wakanda T’Challa had described was nowhere in sight. “We’re gonna crash, Buck.”

Suddenly it was 1945, Bucky was dead, and Peggy was sobbing into the dispatch as the Valkyrie hovered over the Arctic Circle. His chest was tight, too tight, and the impact shattered his legs, he felt the  _ pain _ , up his knees like before, like it was fresh, like they were being broken and re-broken. The heart pounding slower and slower, drifting unconscious but clinging to wakefulness, afraid he would go under, under. Half in this century, half out. Under so much ice, metal, asleep but awake, the aircraft trapping him, his own metal prison, too small, claustrophobic, walls closing in, thinking he was ready to die until he was in Death’s mouth, holding open her jaws with sheer willpower as she tried to swallow him down. Strength, all he ever was was strength, and it was fading all the time. And then the cold, so  _ cold _ in his lungs like when he was sick, couldn’t  _ breathe– _

“STEVE!” Bucky shouted. He was operating the quinjet – Steve was on the floor, head throbbing like he’d hit it on something, hard. They hadn’t crashed, they hadn’t– “I know you’re on some shell shock trip right now, but it would be a really great time to snap out of it and land this plane.” Panic seeped into Bucky’s voice as he single-handedly (literally) tried to direct their aircraft to the Wakandan landing strip. Wings tipping, the jet teetered, and Steve felt his stomach lurch.

_ Land the plane. _

Steve snapped to, not really thinking but falling into muscle memory, numb and automatic as he got to his feet. Only someone with Bucky’s perceptiveness would be able to tell how unsteady he was on his feet. Bucky clambered out of his way as Steve took the controls, his jaw flexing with concentration. He swallowed bile and looked out over what had minutes ago been miles of African jungle; now, he was looking at a cityscape, Stark-like towers thrusting upward as if from the Earth itself, highways and ant-sized people milling about in sleek, ornate clothing, gleaming floor-to-ceiling windows and hovercrafts and activity. Steve’s observant gaze took it all in, calculating. He reminded himself to breathe. He’d ask about how the treeline they were  _ definitely going to hit  _ had transformed into a bustling, technological paradise of a metropolis later.

Now that Steve’d gotten the jet back on course, Bucky was able to stand. He set his remaining hand on Steve’s shoulder – for balance or comfort, Steve didn’t know, and didn’t care. Bucky was  _ here  _ and safe and his hand was on his shoulder like it had never left, like maybe somewhere, in some other dimension, nothing had changed.

He clung to that thought so he could land safely without another panic attack stripping him of air. The serum could heal the body, but he needed a helluva lot more than that to keep him sane.

_ Go to your happy place _ , his therapist had told him. He hadn’t been very good at it. When, exactly, had he been happy?

But now, with Bucky’s palm quietly saying what neither of them had quite managed to spit out –  _ I understand  _ – he thought he might know what his therapist was on about. The whole  _ happiness  _ thing, anyway.

On landing, Bucky squeezed his shoulder. It took everything in him not to turn his head and kiss the back of Bucky’s hand.  _ Not yet _ , he warned himself.

“You did it, Steve.”

“Thanks.”   
  
“We’re here.”

Bucky was sounding pretty good. He’d let out one  _ Steve-Captain-America _ on the ride over, which had stung only because it reminded Steve of how much damage HYDRA had done, but Bucky was sounding less and less robotic and more like his old self the more distance they put between them and Zemo.

They shared a look, and then hopped to, each grabbing their getaway bag and Bucky following Steve’s lead off the plane. Solid ground never felt so good, even if the irony of the two most famous U.S. veterans seeking asylum abroad wasn’t lost on them. 

King T’Challa had sent the Dora Milaje to greet them, and while the spears were a little off-putting, the general nodded at them and led them to the city, Steve supporting most of Bucky’s weight as they limped their sorry way into the heart of Wakanda.

 

***

 

Wakanda was like waking up in the future 2.0.

“Two-point-oh?” Bucky had whispered when Steve had divulged his opinion.

“It’s like… again?” Steve had whispered back, not ready to utter the words  _ It’s Britney, bitch  _ (which Clint had taught him) in front of the elegant and intimidating Okoye, who led them through tunnels and hallways and sliding doors at a pace they could hardly keep up. Steve’s eyes were drawn to everything; the landscape, the funny-looking buildings, the technology, the sleekness of it all. But even this next-level futuristic gem tucked away in the African wilderness wasn’t enough to distract him from the warm weight draped against his left side. Bucky was a trooper, but even Steve could tell the Winter Soldier was starting to fade.

Finally, Okoye stood at attention. “The throne room,” she said in accented English, the bottom of her spear tapping the ground twice, which somehow made it official. “King T’Challa wishes to see you now.”

Steve almost laughed, debating whether to ask for a heart, a brain, some courage, or to go home.

Ha. _ To go home. _

That sobered him up. What he wouldn’t do, now, to click his heels and…

He swallowed it, swallowed it all, put his arm around James Buchanan Barnes where it belonged, and bowed before the king.

 

***

 

T’Challa, evidently, had thought through everything. And quickly. He seemed laid back, as far as kings went (when he didn’t have the claws of his cat suit at Bucky’s innocent throat) and Steve felt a pleasant affinity for him that sort of forgave the whole dude-in-a-catsuit-trying-to-kill-my-best-friend thing. (Steve really couldn’t get over the cat suit). 

But Steve had lost a lot of people in this too-long life of his. He might as well start adding people back. T’Challa’d set his sister, Shuri, with the wide smile and confusing but impressive hair, on the job of creating a big fancy laboratory to take care of the “broken white boy,” as she called him. It was the least they could do, T’Challa said, after Vienna and Siberia and everything in between.

Steve didn’t disagree.

Shuri, the teenage princess who put even Howard Stark to shame, started giving the boys a tour of her lab. All of it went over Steve’s head. She talked about triggers and memory, neurons and brainwashing. Bucky didn’t even look like he was trying to pay attention. Steve knew that look. There was something on his mind. It was heartbreaking, in a way. Steve never knew a Bucky to not be enthralled by the latest technology, the newest gadgets. The future had even snuck up on J.B. Barnes.

At the conclusion of the tour, Steve had homework – a number of words to look up. Synapse. Neurotransmitter. Hippocampus. Thalamus. Amygdala. Electrode. Bucky just looked tired, like he needed a goddamn bubble bath and some of Mama Barnes’ famous cabbage rolls (they tasted better than they sounded).

“This is all great, ma’am,” Bucky said, thinking hard on every word. “But it seems like it’s not quite ready just yet.”

“Just a few short weeks–” she insisted. She was clearly not someone who was doubted very often, so she made a face when Bucky shook his head and cut her off.

“Right. A few weeks where I can be triggered, reactivated, and turned back into a mindless, enhanced killing machine. We can’t wait that long, Miss.”

“Buck, what are you saying?” Steve asked, hurt.

“I’m sayin’,” Buck said, looking between Steve and Shuri in the starkly white laboratory. “It’s time for the freezer.”

 

***

 

Steve fought it. Shuri was insulted. T’Challa was all for it.

“If the man feels he is a threat to my people, we must not take it lightly. This is where my mother and my sister live. I will not risk their safety after your friend has admitted he is dangerous.”

“He’s compromised. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Steve pleaded with the king. 

“That what you think?” He hadn’t known Bucky was standing behind him.

Steve froze and turned, horrified.

“No, no, Bucky that’s not what I meant, I–”

“Right.”

“It’s his decision,” T’Challa said, with eyes only for Bucky. “I’m sorry, Captain Rogers. Know your place.”

For someone a third of Steve’s age, the guy had a point. Shame coursed through Steve’s veins; he fell back like a wounded animal. He wasn’t ready to lose him, not  _ again _ , not when he’d just gotten used to that warm hand on his shoulder, the scruff of his beard, the way he called him out for being the damn punk he was. The feeling of having one other friend in the room who remembered when the Dodgers belonged to Brooklyn and Brooklyn belonged to the two of them. 

They had a little time. Shuri needed to get the cryotank set up. It went too quickly, and then there was no time at all.

Steve frowned as the gases shrouded Bucky’s face in a plume of blue-gray haze. It took everything in him not to press his palms to the glass and scream. 

It was like losing him all over again.

 

***

 

Wakanda was no place for an anxious super soldier.

Steve paced the halls, stalked the staff, hardly ate. He texted Shuri unabashedly for updates every morning, and every morning she would say:  _ all of sleeping beauty’s vitals are STILL GOOD steve. _

He would say:  _ sorry. had to ask. _

She would say:  _ I know. _

And on it went.

 

***

 

Finally, Captain America drove  _ someone  _ over the edge with all his questions and frowning and staring woefully at his peacefully sleeping better half, because  _ someone  _ sent him a distraction.

(Hint: It was definitely Shuri).

“We hear there’s a moping super soldier in need,” Sam Wilson said into the comm, his wings folding mechanically as he landed smoothly on the Wakandan plain. Natasha dropped equally gracefully at his side, a wry smile on her face. Steve rushed to hug them. It’d been too long. He told them as much.

“What are you doing here?” Steve laughed in disbelief, his first laugh, he realized, since Bucky went under.

“Heard there’s a blond idiot with a rain cloud following him around in Wakanda,” Sam said. Nat seemed in agreement. Steve blushed. “C’mon, there’s a world out there that still needs saving. The Wakandans have got it covered. Let the old dude get his beauty sleep.”

Steve paused.

“I can’t leave, fellas. I can’t leave him.” He put his hands in his pockets, embarrassed at his own inability to do the right thing. He’d left a lot more behind in Siberia than his shield.

“If you think for one second that Barnes wants you moping around and creeping on him a la Edward Cullen, then you don’t know him as well as you think you do,” Nat chimed in. 

And she had a point. Even if he didn’t know this Cullen guy from Adam.

He sighed, like even he couldn’t believe he was agreeing to this. “C’mon. My stuff’s this way.”

  
  



	26. Eloquence and Accidents

_Bucky  
_ June 21 - August 17, 1943

 

Bucky didn’t like this war. He didn’t like it one bit. He envied the journalists, roving around with their big cameras, technically doing their duty but hardly sticking their neck out at all. If he could do it all over again, he’d do that. He’d give anything to take another picture, get the focus and the lighting just right. But he’d enlisted, for reasons he was having trouble remembering out in the field with dust in his mouth and the weight of the rifle on his back, and this was the path he’d chosen.

While everyone else sniffed at the perfume their sweethearts spritzed in their letters or eagerly awaited the next delivery of V-Mail (which could always be tomorrow or three weeks from now), Bucky moped. There was no other word for it. He felt guilty, all of a sudden. _Letters._ He hadn’t even _thought_ of writing letters home, not to his parents, his sisters, not even to Steve. It just hadn’t crossed his mind – he hadn’t packed any of the supplies for it.

“Here,” Dum Dum said, sauntering over to Bucky as if he’d read his mind. “I haven’t seen you pen one damn letter to your folks. Take a bit of stationery and tell ‘em that you love ‘em.”

“I don’t have a pen.”  
  
“Well, you coulda just asked,” Dum Dum replied, providing one.

So Bucky wrote.

 

* * *

 

~~_Dear Steve,_ ~~

~~_Hi Stevie_ _,_ ~~

~~_Mr. Rogers_ ~~

_Steve,_

_  
_ _War’s boring. Too much sitting around. Beats working at the docks and smelling like tuna, though. Tell Becca I’m doing O.K., would you? Just tell the little ones I killed 100 Nazis with my bare hands. I’m sending a letter to Ma, too. Hope they’re still inviting you over for Shabbat. Don’t get into trouble. O.K. Bye._

 

_Your pal,_

_Bucky B._

 

 

* * *

 

The letter he’d written didn’t seem to himself justice. But he was afraid that if he started writing what he actually wanted to say, he’d never be able to stop. So he licked the envelope shut, addressed it, and dropped it in the mail sack and wondered if it would ever make it to their teeny tiny tenement. If Steve would hold it in his delicate hands. If Steve ever thought about him.

The thoughts occupied him while he took second watch. At morning light, the 107th was marching out.

 

* * *

 

_S_ _teve,_

_Hey pal. How’s home? I miss it every G-ddamn day, Steve. I know how bad you want this war, Rogers, but believe me when I say that this war ain’t no place for a fella like you. And I don’t mean your size, because G-d knows all 95 lb of you knows how to beat the living daylights out of any sap, and I don’t even mean your cough, though I feel like it could give us away to the Germans in the middle of the night. No, guys like you don’t belong in this war ‘cause the world’s got bigger plans for you, Steve._

_Trust me: it don’t take brains to fight this war, and every damn one of us is so replaceable it makes my stomach sick to think about. If I fall backward from my position in the trench with a hole in my head, there’s another marksman there to take my place. Every day, boys come off these boats looking fresh and jumpy, and every day, boys ship back in wooden boxes or with syringes sticking out of them. War’s efficient like that, Steve._

_You’re just too pretty for this war. Sorry if that’s queer of me to say. It’s true. You still got soft parts, Steve. Your eyes, for one. You’re tough – toughest asshole I know, really – but you gotta protect the parts of you that’re still soft. You’ll just turn into a big ball of anger here. But at home, you can still make art. G-d I hope you’re making art. Someone’s gotta combat all this destruction with something_ _good._

_If we’d had more time, Steve? I woulda told you the truth. I woulda told you that I had something sweet for you. Like for a girl… but for you. And not ‘cause you remind me of a girl or nothing, ‘cause you don’t. It’s ‘cause you’re you, and G-d I miss all five feet of ya, Stevie._

_Bucky_

 

* * *

 

When the emotions were too much, Bucky asked Dum Dum for more stationery. He didn’t know how else to cope with what he was seeing. He’d never seen a dead body because thankfully the Jews liked their pine coffins _sealed_ (the Chosen People, indeed) so even when his auntie died and they’d sat _shiva_ , he didn’t have to _see_.

So he wrote to Steve. He wasn’t going to _send_ the letters. Christ. It just felt good to get it out.

 

* * *

 

_Steve,_

_I wish I could touch you right now. Before, I thought it was just a teenage thing, wanting to fuck everything that moved. You know how it is. Or maybe not. You wanted to_ _fight_ _everything that moved. Ha. Perhaps they’re the same thing._

 _But being here, the guys all say how much they’d pay to see a pair of breasts. And they_ _do_ _pay for those breasts when we stopover near the big cities. Don’t matter to them that they can’t speak the same language. Well, except the guys who took French at school. But I think they overestimate how good their French is. I guess it don’t matter much. Sex is a universal language. Most people’s fluent._

_The point is, I just want you, Steve. G-d, can’t believe I’m crying right now. It just feels so good to write it, you know? Well, I guess you don’t. Because you’re not even going to read this and because there’s probably some dame licking your wounds as I write. It just feels so good to finally write it. O.K. O.K. Here we go._

_I love you, Steven Grant Rogers._

_Damn. I could run a mile right now, Steve. I could run 100. I could kill Hitler myself. Stevie!! I love you I love you I love you._

_Ha!_

_You know who_

* * *

 

The 107th  marched back from its first battle about two-thirds lighter than it had marched in. Bucky did his best to keep his hands from trembling. _Eyes forward, Barnes._

 

* * *

 

_Steve,_

_There’s so much to tell you. I killed my first guy. Really, truly killed him. Clean shot. The bullet came out his back and everything._

_I’m not saying I regret it. I don’t think I do. He had his own muzzle aimed at my heart – it was him or me, the world would never be the same._

_Thing is, does it matter_ _why_ _I killed him? Because I’m gonna be honest with you Steve, I didn’t shoot him because I wanted him to die or anything. And I didn’t shoot him because he was fighting for a country that bleeds its people and hungers for conquest either. I didn’t even shoot him because my C.O. told me to._

_I shot him because if he shot first, I might never see you again. I literally killed a man for another lazy afternoon in our apartment, or maybe a beer on the fire escape, or to clean you up after a fight and hum in agreement even though I don’t think the other guy really deserved that shiner you gave him. That’s why I killed him. I’m killing real, flesh-and-blood men for you, Steve. Even though you never asked me to._

_Anyway, I thought I loved you. And then I killed for you. And I don’t know if I even want to give you that kind of love, anymore. I think I spoiled it, is the point. I think I spoiled our love before it even had a chance to be. And the chances weren’t so hot to begin with, were they?_

_Sorry for making it filthy, Steve. I know you still believe in G-d. Sorry I sinned without your permission. I’m sorry I caught you up in this war without you ever having to leave the front door. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you from the ugliness of it all._

_Bucky_

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

“Hey, Sarge,” a fellow they called Tavern greeted in passing. It dawned on Bucky that he didn’t actually know the guy’s real name, and yet they’d just killed for each other.

  
“Hey, Tav,” Bucky replied with heart. They were brothers, now. That was what happened when you lost as many men as they had and were in the lucky, surviving few.

“Oh, just so you know,” Tav said, turning back. “Dum Dum found the letters you had in that big envelope in your tent. Since they were all addressed, we sent ‘em off, since mail went out today and Lord knows when that’s gonna happen again. Hope that’s alright!” Tav skipped off toward the smell of food, and Bucky’s entire body went numb, he couldn’t _breathe._

When he regained movement in his tingling, disbelieving limbs, he sprinted across the camp at top speed to where the Victory Mail truck had been earlier, all he found were tire tracks.

______________________________________________________________________________

 

_Steve,_

~~_You might get some mail from me. I didn’t write it. Some of the guys here were teasing me a little, all in good fun, and they wrote those letters. They’re totally fake. Sorry if I freaked you out._ ~~

~~_The letters you’re about to get from me don’t mean anything, okay? That’s just war talking. It makes men crazy, it really does._ ~~

_I’m sorry, okay?_ _  
_   
James

______________________________________________________________________________

 

Ultimately, the 107th was down too many men. Colonel Phillips called the order for retreat. They were going to have to march back across Europe and wait for reinforcements.

Bucky would have gladly marched back to the front, though. What would be the point of going home if home wouldn’t be waiting for him to get back anymore?


	27. Starbucks

_Steve  
_ March 2017

 

It had been like a movie. Well, Steve thought it had been like a movie. He hadn’t seen too many films produced after 1939, but all things considered, people didn’t change much, so the movies probably didn’t either. Besides, Clint had made him watch _The Notebook_ and it had been sort of like that, so, yeah. Like a movie.

Hugging Bucky’s body to him as he came out of cryogenic stasis in the bowels of the Wakandan laboratory was like finding out that he wasn’t actually the last man on Earth after years of isolation. Like being found on a deserted island by a passing ship after having given up on ever rejoining civilization. It filled the places of him that he didn’t know were empty, softened the parts of him he hadn’t noticed going cold. Bucky Barnes was alive and _this time Steve hadn’t let him fall._

He’d worried, momentarily, about how the Wakandans might feel about his… _identity._ Being gay in the United States was under attack – what was it like in the rest of the world?

But T’Challa had reassured him that Wakandan technology had developed independent of the rest of the world; it’s tech wasn’t binary, and neither was its people. Which Steve took to mean, _you are safe here._

And then a teenage genius had whisked off with the love of his life and honestly? Steve was a _mess._

 

***

 

“You’re a mess, Cap,” Sam announced without ceremony one morning, early on in Bucky’s stupid little organic yoga yuppie retreat in the fucking woods, putting a mug of black coffee in front of him. Even as he did, the vibranium plates of the mug glowed purple-blue and shifted to fit the shape of Steve’s hand. He sighed at the technology, lifted his mug in silent and unenthusiastic cheers to Sam, and sipped. He hadn’t come out of the ice a grumpy old man; on the contrary, he’d been spry and alert, the adrenaline rush that only a war could instill in a person still coursing through his veins months after he realized that the war had ended. Seventy-odd years ago. In Allied victory.

At the cost of thousands of innocent Japanese lives. But what could he do? And so, with enough frustration and anger and guilt balled up inside him, he’d become the grandpa they’d all expected him to be.

Was it just him, or was this coffee bitter?

“Earth to Steve Rogers, it’s polite to respond when people speak to you.”

Steve turned his head. “Sorry, Sam. It’s been a long… ” He struggled to come up with the right amount of time to finish that sentence. Been a long day? It was only nine in the morning. Week? Month?

Life?

“Which brings us back to my original statement. You’re a mess.”

“Buck’s alive, awake, re-learning this world and fresh out of the freezer, and I can’t so much as say hi to him. It’s killing me.”

“Gotta be something to distract you, man.”

“There’s not.”

“Come on, go for a run with me.”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“We could go down to the market. Wakandan street food is _the shit,_ Cap, you’d love it, they’ve got these little roasted nut things that they put on–”

“No, Sam.”

“What are you possibly going to do that’s productive here in your room. You haven’t left this apartment in two days.”

Steve shrugged.

“I’ll call Nat in, Steve.”

Steve glared at him. That was a low blow, even for Sam. But Sam met his glare head-on and raised his hands in a half shrug, half look-what-you-made-me-do. Steve groaned aloud, swallowed another scorching gulp of coffee that burned his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Not like it wouldn’t be healed in about four minutes.

After their silent altercation, Sam cleared his throat and spoke more kindly. “I don’t wanna do it, Steve. But you’re Captain America–”

“Stop saying that. I left my shield behind. It’s over.”

“–okay, you’re some guy with _Captain America’s exact abilities and demeanor_ ,” Sam amended, sass included, “and the world out there needs its superheroes. You and I _both_ know that. I know your boy means a lot to you–” Steve flinched at _your boy,_ he couldn’t help himself, there was always a part of him that would be afraid whenever his queerness was brought into the light, and even Sam faltered at Steve’s negative reaction, but he pushed on, “but Vision and Wanda are out there somewhere trying to survive, and Clint’s trying to make the world safe for his family, and Natasha fights her crippling PTSD _every day_ because she’ll be damned if she doesn’t put her tortured childhood to good use, and _you_ ” Sam fixed a pointed gaze on Steve, “Need to stop moping and realize that Bucky is safe and you get to see him again soon. He’s not dead, Steve. He ain’t lost. He’s gotta heal, and you have to take care of yourself if you’re ever gonna be able to take care of him.”

The last part struck a chord with Steve. How could he take care of Bucky if he couldn’t even get himself to brush his teeth half the days?

“Alright, fine. What’s on the agenda today?”

 

***

 

They traveled the African continent for three weeks; Nat joined them in week two, Scott Lang for the third week. Mostly, they took direction from Nakia and rained terror on the bastards who thought human trafficking was _okay_ or put assault rifles into the hands of children. It didn’t take much to get Steve back on the horse once Sam exposed him to the injustices taking place mere miles from the thriving paradise that was King T’Challa’s Wakanda.

At night, around the fire as they camped, Sam divulged what it meant to him to have the gang out here fighting the good fight. Harlem might be home, but Africa was ancestry. Roots. Rhythm.  Unlike the Holocaust, there were no well-kept records of when the white man plowed through West Africa, corralling slaves while applauding themselves for declarations like _all men are created equal._ Nat had put a hand on Sam’s knee. He’d smiled sadly at her.

Steve killed four warlords the next morning.

(Don’t worry. They took precautions to make sure that the power vacuum was filled with better people and systems to protect the vulnerable and the oppressed, all at Nakia’s recommendation. Didn’t mean killing the warlords was any less satisfying).

It was Scott who put an end to the charade, suggesting a warm shower and a home-cooked meal might be good for them. The camping had started making Steve think of the front and gave him nightmares. Besides, he hadn’t liked being so far from Bucky for so long. Easy to convince, the foursome headed back to Wakanda for a short rest.

 

***

 

Steve didn’t know clothes could be so soft; and that’s a lot coming from someone with skin as sensitive as his. He pulled on a white tunic with maroon embroidery around the collar and sleeves and navy pants that fit like sweatpants but were elastic at the ankle.

“Joggers,” Sam laughed. “We call those joggers.”

Steve groaned and tossed his head back. Every time he thought he was getting a hold of this whole twenty-first century thing, something new came along to remind him that he was, and always would be, out of place.

Feeling a little silly in his Wakandan-issued slippers, he left his bathroom and their living quarters entirely in the hopes of running into Shuri, who just might have an update on how Buck was doing. Anything would do. Was he eating? Sleeping through the night? Did he ever ask about him? Did he seem in good spirits? Talk in an accent? Talk in English?

Literally anything. Steve was grasping at straws.

He padded into her laboratory, ‘ _just hoping to maybe bump into her’ who was he kidding_ , whistling with his hands in his pockets (all Wakandan clothing had pockets, it was a beautiful thing). He wasn’t in there but two seconds before he was greeted a small, white spherical robot that took him in – possibly recording him, downloading his DNA, and assessing his blood sugar levels all at once – and then made a distinctly excited beeping noise before rolling away.

“Come in, Steve!” Shuri shouted moments later. Sheepish, Steve rubbed the back of his neck and  lumbered toward her voice.

“You know you could have just texted me,” she said, spinning around dramatically in her chair like she’d been waiting her whole life for this exact moment of peak drama.

Steve blushed, looking at the ground. Then his head snapped up.

“Wait what?”

 

***

 

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** U do know how to text, right?

 **Text message  
** **From: Captain R.U. Serious  
** I’m not sure STOP Hopefully I am getting it right STOP Are you getting these STOP

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
**...

 

***

_Shuri_

 

Shuri regretted three things in this world. Not capturing her brother’s attempt at the cinnamon challenge on camera, not properly introducing herself to that Parker kid who was _c u t e_ , and giving Captain “You-can-call-me-Steve” Rogers her phone number.

Every morning, it was the same thing.

 **Text message  
** **From: Captain R.U. Serious  
** Good morning, Shuri! Any updates?

There were only so many ways a person could say no. Really, Steve.

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** Not today, sorry!

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** Same old same old.

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** Wish there was something new to tell ya, Cap!

(She had not wished that at all).

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** Nothing new to add atm

(That had garnered her a “Do you need cash? I can run to the ATM if you need me to!” from Captain Pushover, who was subsequently delivered a short video of popular acronyms used by adolescents in SMS messaging).

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** Not really :/

 **Text message  
** **To: Captain R.U. Serious  
** I braided his hair. Does that count as an update?

(This had resulted in indistinguishable combinations of letters from Steve’s phone, either from his unfettered excitement or, more likely, him dropping the phone mid-message as he freaked the fuck out).

 

***

 

Finally, Shuri had something to tell Steve. The Falcon guy (cute but too old for her) had basically begged her to find _something_ to disclose to the hurting captain, and she was proud to say she had made a pretty critical discovery. It warranted a phone call.

The poor guy answered on the first ring. Shuri tried not _tsk_ into the phone.

“Shuri! Hi. This is unexpected. Is he okay?” he said in one breath. Shuri counted to three.

“He’s chillin’,” she said, then quickly corrected herself for the dinosaur. “I mean, he’s well. You know I love a good challenge. He is healing as expected, his mind bending back to something like it once was. He is feeling more like himself every day.”

She could _hear_ Steve bursting on the other side of the line with eagerness, elation, palpable desire. _How did he even_ do _that?_

“That’s… Shuri, er, Princess Shuri, that’s… that’s huge.” What a bumbling idiot. It was cute. But he was an idiot.

“We have a problem though,” she admitted. “Well, I don’t know if _problem_ is the right word. He remembers you.” She gave him the dignity of ignoring the soft but audible gasp that leapt through the phone line. “But for some reason, he seems to remember you best with a beard. Seeing pictures of you clean-shaven take him longer to recognize, they confuse him. I don’t know if you had… ”

“A beard in the war. Before the… before the serum. He remembers me from before.”

Oh Gods _please don’t start crying please please don’t start crying._

“It would appear as such,” she said, letting professionalism seep into her voice to give Steve a hint that she was his _scientist_ not his therapist.

“I’ll grow one,” Steve said immediately, like the decision had been made weeks ago. “I’ll stop shaving right now. You think that will be best? You don’t think... I won’t scare him, will I?”

She bit back her knee-jerk reaction which was to tell him that he was scaring _her_ a little bit. But that was cruel, and as clueless as Steve could be, the one thing he didn’t need more of in this life was more cruelty. Softening, she traced the diagrams on her desk with her fingertips and tried again. “Steve, you couldn’t scare him, okay? You’re all he talks about. We’ve got a little to-do list he’s working through, some goals he has to achieve, and when he meets them, he gets to see you. It motivates him like nothing I’ve ever seen. Seeing you now might disrupt the careful chronology we’re rebuilding, and you being his last target as the Winter Soldier makes you likely to be a trigger, but damn. I hope someone talks about me the way he talks about you someday. You really, truly couldn’t scare him.”

This time, Shuri didn’t even pretend not to hear the sob coming from Steve’s end.

 

***

_Steve_

 

“You’re growing out your beard. It’s a good choice. You’ll look handsome,” Natasha told him a few nights later. Her knowledge that he and Bucky were indisputably soul mates (you didn’t get much more star-crossed lovers than a pair of queer soldiers defying time and space and the laws of physics to finally be reunited in a world where gay marriage was legal and the war was over) never seemed to stop her from (mostly innocent) flirting. Steve kind of liked it. She kept him on his toes.

“Thanks,” he said, knowing his blush was giving him away as she gave him a full up-down, suddenly suspicious.

“What is it?” she demanded, her cropped blonde hair whipping her face as she turned to him.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“You couldn’t tell a lie to save your life, Rogers.”

He sighed, defeated. “ApparentlyBuckylikesmebetterwithabeard,” he sped through.

 _“What?”_ she asked, not letting him get away with the mumbling-it-under-his-breath thing. Then again, when did she ever let anyone get away with anything?

“Apparently, Bucky likes me better with a beard,” he admitted, kicking at a weed in the grass.

She clasped a slender hand to her mouth, not trying all that hard to disguise the grin spreading devilishly under it.

 _“Quit it,”_ he begged, feeling his cheeks and ears move from a comfortable salmon to a burning tomato.

To that, she just giggled and shook her head. He made a face, sauntering off, but she chased after him, catching his elbow.

“No, no, Steve, I, really. I like it.”

Another giggle.

 

***

 

It was a dance, all of this, and Steve’d always had two left feet.

He never made it to Peggy in time; he wouldn’t do the same to Bucky. Not now. Not when they finally had time.

His presence in Wakanda drove Shuri crazy and made Sam question his mental health, so it was better when they were on the move. At the same time, every mile that he put between himself and Bucky – every added minute it would take him to get back in case of emergency – cut Steve like a knife and pulled on the steel cables that tethered him now to Buck.

The proverbial rock and a hard place.

Actually, he was propped up against a boulder in the savannah, blinking into a magnificent, misty sunrise with Sam rolling over and groaning at his feet, when his phone buzzed.

It was a photo message from Shuri; unfailingly, his heart skipped a beat.

 _Your princess is almost ready for you ;),_ it read with a picture of Bucky’s side profile. Steve shielded the screen from the rising sun so he could make out the image – it was Bucky, his hair tied up in a little knot at the top of his head, well, half, with the other half down and long and blowing in the wind. There was the start of a smile on his lips, like he was just realizing that he was being photographed. He looked out on a blue lake. Lake Turkana, Steve guessed. There was something distinctly soft about the picture; it made Steve’s fingers itch to draw, and he hadn’t picked up a pencil in months.

He touched the screen with his finger, as if to stroke virtual-Bucky’s face, but the touch screen clicked him out of the image when he did it. Fumbling immediately, he pulled the picture back up, lips curling up at the corners. He couldn’t help himself, and he couldn’t really be bothered to try.

“I wanna see,” Nat said, sneaking up on him in that way she had and deftly snatching the phone from his hands before he could even open his mouth in protest.

“What? What?” Sam sputtered, scrambling up to a standing position and looking like a dope with his Falcon goggles still on from the night before.

“Oh, Sasha,” Nat said, taking in the image. Sam peeped over her shoulder, nodding and smiling that gap-toothed smile of his that Steve couldn’t be mad at if he tried.

“You scored a good-lookin’ dude,” Sam agreed, lifting his goggles to get a better look. Steve shook his head at the pair of them.

“Alright,” Steve said, letting Captain America’s commanding tone seep into his voice to end the teasing. He stole back his cell phone. “Thank you for your input. But I already knew he was a damn catch.” Natasha grinned at him; Sam clapped his hands together.

He tried to play it cool after that, but the truth was that he tingled for the whole rest of the day, and he was sure that Sam and Natasha caught him reopening the message and stealing glances at a Bucky who for the first time didn’t look like he was hurting. To Shuri, he only replied with a heart-eye emoji. He was trying to keep his cool.

 

***

 

Shuri started asking for things, and Steve was more than happy to oblige, figuring that each task brought him closer to their eventual reunion. Admittedly, Barton had got him hooked on _Lord of the Rings_ , so everything was a quest or task these days.

First, it was hair ties. Shuri was _very_ specific.

***Don’t* get the ones with little metal bits! They give hair creases and get all stuck in it.**

Then it was foods. That was a good sign – Shuri must have found a way to remove the scar tissue on Bucky’s tongue that kept him from… tasting things. Steve tried not to think about it. But they were ordering all kinds of foods. American foods. Pizza and hot dogs. Jewish foods. Matzo ball soup like his ma used to make; a bagel with lox (Steve literally flew across the Atlantic for that one. He had to get it just the way Buck liked it; nothing compared to a New York bagel. Bucky would know the difference, Steve was sure). One day, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Such a simple thing.

Another day, a Florida orange. Steve’s chest tightened, and impatience gnawed at him from the inside.

Natasha tried to comfort him. “You waited seventy years, Steve. What’s another couple weeks?”

Not biting her head off was one of his prouder moments.

 

***

_Shuri_

 

Was it evil? Was she being ‘evil?’ Who’s to say?

“You’re not serious,” Captain Rogers said flatly, a strawberry frappuccino in one hand and a grande soy vanilla latte in the other. “You’re not.”

Shuri and Okoye shrugged, each taking their drink out of his hand.

“You said _Bucky_ needed these,” he said, all accusatory and full of white-boy frustration. It was kind of fun getting him all worked up, Shuri thought. After all, she had a big surprise coming for him – so she didn’t feel _too_ bad. Okoye giggled into her frap; it made her feel distinctly better.

“He _did_ ,” Shuri said, innocently, _because she was innocent_. “You think the White Wolf’s gonna heal if his team isn’t properly caffeinated?”

Steve rolled his eyes, realizing that he probably should have known that the 100-year-old man with brain problems probably hadn’t requested the silly Starbucks drinks. Shuri sipped from her to-go cup and had to close her eyes with pleasure as the sugar hit her tongue.

“ _Women_ ,” Steve sighed. Okoye was at his throat in .2 seconds flat, her spear at his throat.

Damn Shuri loved that bitch.

“Women who are the only reason you are safe, the only reason your love is coming back to life,” she said, all trace of laughter gone from her thin voice. “Think before you speak, ancient one.”

Captain Rogers apologized profusely, leaving their presence in a bumbling mess as so many men did when they encountered Okoye and her justified wrath. “Are white boys all the same?” Okoye asked, showing a certain tiredness that she reserved only for Shuri. It made her feel special. Confided in. “Because I am tired of them.”

“They try,” Shuri lamented, shaking her head. “But they are always a lot to handle.”

“How is the one at Lake Turkana? The one they are calling White Wolf?”

“Oh, I like him,” Shuri said, laughing. “It’s quite fun, because he is learning and re-learning so many new things. Inside, he was already a good man. But I am making him a feminist.”

Okoye punched her arm playfully and slurped up her frappuccino. “Do you ever think about how Captain Rogers used to wear a _star-_ on his uniform, and how… how Sergeant Barnes’ nickname is _Bucky_ , like, - _bucks_ ? And if, if you put them _together_ … ”

“No,” Shuri replied, looking over incredulously at the most violent and stealthy warrior she knew.

“Yeah, me neither.”


	28. Regret loves company, Buckaroo

_ Bucky   
_ June 15, 1943

 

What had he done?

It had seemed such a good idea. Even at Basic, freezing his ass off in a state that proudly calls itself the ‘frozen tundra’ (Bucky would never understand the draw of the midwest, except maybe Detroit), he hadn’t questioned his decision. Not during the push-ups, or the humiliation, the 3 am drills or when Johnson got sent home with dysentery. But now, as the ship’s stern kissed New York Harbor goodbye, he thought about his grandparents – his father’s, that is. His mother’s had died in Russia after they sent her to America at fifteen. But he thought about how his Papa and  _ Bunica _ must have felt to see Lady Liberty emerge out of the violent waves, torch alight, signifying their entrance into America. They must have shuffled, cold and scared, in long lines through Ellis Island to finally reach the city. Did they feel victory? Depression? He hadn’t asked. He was only 25, after all, and had spent the last few years worrying about kissing and his grandmother’s fried matzo and which sister was pulling on him. He hadn’t thought to ask about Romania, or why they came. But it seemed ungrateful of him to turn his back on their sacrifice and voluntarily retrace their footsteps back to Europe.

It always struck him as ironic that the Statue of Liberty, one of the greatest symbols of U.S. democracy, was actually French. Some of the men – his to-be brothers, supposedly – turned and waved at her. One smartass had the gall to catcall her. Another sniffled behind him.

Everyone grieved differently.

Without warning or even proper organization, the men on the ship broke into “God Bless America,” which mixed awkwardly in the briny air with the shouts of seagulls. Bucky moved his mouth but no sound came out, and he watched the waving handkerchiefs on the shoreline until he couldn’t make them out anymore. It all became so real. He was leaving. His feet may have touched New York sand for the last time. In the crowd of G.I.s there wasn’t quite room for pulling out his things, so he put his right hand over his breast pocket where the sketches of Steve and his family were folded up. What a grave mistake he’d made. One-way tickets were meant for braver, more adventurous men. All he wanted to do was take pictures and hold something special between the parentheses of his body and… 

Well, that’s why he was doing this, after all. It was based on two things. Faith, and if faith failed, statistics.

First, G-d might look on him favorably for this. He never ate bread during Passover, even the time Becca had been given a cake walking home from school and had shoved it under his nose, testing him. He wore his  _ kippah  _ every Shabbat without complaint. They were on pretty good standing, him and G-d, he thought, and his one request was as selfless as it was selfish. Keep Steve safe. That wasn’t so hard. And just in case the Catholics were right about the whole hell thing, he never told Steve how he felt about him. These were the things he’d done to save the bastard. With that moron, it was a full time job.

And if in the end, there was no G-d at all and man had since the beginning of time wasted his energy building beautiful structures that fell on blind eyes and whispered prayers that fell on deaf ears – which was all pretty dismal – Bucky had landed on statistics. The more men enlisted, the fewer they would draft. The fewer they drafted, the less likely they’d get Steve. Bucky’d never been one to bet on the horse races, so he hoped he’d saved up a little luck with numbers now.

Besides, it had been time for him to leave; Pearl Harbor was an egregious loss of American lives, but for Bucky, the war had come at the right time. Bucky knew it didn’t look good that he and Steve were now well into their twenties and still a couple of bachelors posting up together. People were having their suspicions, he thought. It wasn’t really his cup of tea, but he fondued with a lot of girls to keep people off their scent, Naomi being the last in a long line of very sweet dames he’d gotten to know… intimately. If he was a ladies’ man, and Steve retained his rep as a poor, sickly kid who couldn’t provide for a wife, people might stop talking. But it was getting harder. Harder to conceal his feelings, harder to put up with living a lie, harder to finger-bang nice girls in dark corners, listening to their panting breaths and imagining only Steve’s face. He felt bad for them. Deceiving those nice dames wasn’t exactly something he was proud of. In another world, another life, he and Naomi could have really had it all. Or someone like her. No matter how many times he thought it through, though, his body wouldn’t comply. He just wasn’t a fan of lipstick or smooth legs. It was the way he was wired.

But even these thoughts, retracing old logic until he wore grooves in the neural pathways, failed to comfort him as the pink and yellow lights of Coney Island blinked farewell to him. Gripping the rail of the ship, he felt his stomach lurch. He’d docked many a ship but never ridden one himself, poor as he was, and the sensation was already getting old.

He was just thinking of lighting a cigarette when a big sweaty palm came down on his back.

“Well, don’t you look like you’re having a ball,” an unfamiliar voice boomed. Bucky jumped and turned to find a burly man in a bowler hat and handlebar mustache at his side.

Bucky pulled out a smile for him and rubbed his hand sheepishly over his fresh buzz cut. “Sorry, pal. Wasn’t payin’ attention.”

“You got someone special over there?” the man asked, pointing to the harbor they could no longer see. He didn’t much feel like talking, but.

“You could say that,” he replied, looking off more wistfully than he intended. Then he did the only polite thing he could think of. “You?”

“Heidi. My girl-next-door. Pretty much head over heels, but I told her not to wait.”

“I’m sorry.” He meant it.

“Nice to meet ya, Sorry, where’s my manners? I’m Timothy Dugan, by the way, but everyone calls me Dum Dum,” he replied with a shit-eating grin, extending a hand for the shaking.

“Nice to meet ya,” Bucky said and gripped the man’s hand tightly like his father taught him. “James B. Barnes. You can call me Bucky.”

“Buckaroo!” Dugan exclaimed, apparently excited to have a friend. In all honesty, Bucky was too. Europe would be lonely if he didn’t surround himself with some good guys. He had a couple pals around here from Basic, but the men were packed in too tightly to see any of ‘em.

They chatted awhile, swapping hometowns and ex-girlfriends, class pranks and Depression stories. If anything, Dum Dum was a good distraction from the irreversible decision he’d made and the fact that he couldn’t see Brooklyn in the distance even if he tried. Under the ship, he and Dugan made sure to get cots beside each other, and they each helped the other as they took turns getting seasick. Eventually, Dugan admitted his eyelids were heavy and started snoring, and Bucky found himself in his thoughts again.

Ignoring the nervous laughter of all the other men – some as young as sixteen – he just… he hoped he was doing the right thing, because it all felt wrong. The itch of the cot. The reek of the sick. The beastly snores of the friendly stranger. Being a Jew in a sea of blond-haired blue-eyed manly American men. The distance between him and his mother’s cooking. He just couldn’t escape the feeling that he was running away from something.

Jeez Louise he wanted off this ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote in the handkerchief-wavers purely so I could reference John Mulaney here.


	29. A couple of fugitives and a notorious national icon walk into a museum...

_ Steve  
_ July 4, 2017

 

Once they were inside the museum, they circled up.

_ Why were superheroes always circling up?  _ Steve thought, impatient. He was far from Bucky, far from where he was needed, under-caffeinated, and not having it.

“Okay, so I’m thinking if I shrink, someone can lift the display case just long enough for me to slide under but fast enough to not set off the alarms, I can sprint inside and grab the–” Scott Lang schemed, a little  _ too  _ excited for this mission in Steve’s opinion. Team Cap (a name only Scott used for them, FYI) had snuck into the Smithsonian after-hours to retrieve one small, frail photograph that  _ might  _ unlock some of Bucky’s memory. Nat and Sam had looked at him like he was crazy when he proposed the idea (“You want  _ me  _ to sneak into a U.S. government-operated museum so that you can steal a selfie you took in 1945? Your phone  _ has  _ a camera, Steve,” Sam had protested). But Natasha had written a backdoor into the security code for the whole building back in their S.H.I.E.L.D days, so they had basically been able to walk through the front doors. As Scott suggested a perfectly reasonable, sound, well-thought-out plan, he was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass.

“Sorry,” Steve shrugged, retracting his fist from the smashed case. He shook out his hand which throbbed a little from the impact, clearing it of shattered glass. At least he’d kept the gloves on. Admittedly, it was a move he would’ve rather done with the shield, but…

But.

He could make do without her.

“You’d think someone who’s waited seventy years might have a little more patience. Five minutes, Steve. You could’ve waited  _ five  _ minutes,” Sam lamented, goggles still on, arms crossed with disapproval. His boots crunched on shards of glass. Natasha just pursed her lips – hiding a smile, Steve thought – and tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear. 

Steve peeled off a glove and reached into the case for the photograph. Out of frustration or respect, the group got quiet as Steve held a tiny, tangible scrap of his past in a shaking hand. He’d never really thought to come here, to ask the museum curators about their archives, or even for some of his stuff back. He scratched at his incoming beard as he took in  _ himself,  _ though the person in the photograph seemed almost unrecognizable to him now. The gash beneath his eye was a doozie. He hadn’t scarred like that in years. He’d been filthy – the water pressure in the twenty-first century made him forget what it meant to have blood matted in your hair for days on end, smelling like trench foot and sweat. And the cigarette sitting fat between his lips! Steve Rogers hadn’t touched a cigarette since Project Rebirth. In fact, he made videos for middle school health classes on the  _ dangers  _ of cigarettes, these days. ‘Course, the smell of a lit Marlboro always transported him back to Brooklyn and reminded him of tent handjobs with a rolled sock in his mouth, but he couldn’t  _ imagine _ taking a drag now. Yet here was photographic evidence of him being a moron, all through Bucky’s keen eye. He had a way of catching people when they thought no one was lookin’. 

A single tear ran down Steve’s cheek and into the scruff of his beard.

“So, how long do you think we have before Ben Stiller shows up?” Scott asked after Steve had been staring sadly at the photograph for what he must have deemed an uncomfortable amount of time. Sam punched Scott’s shoulder, but Nat snickered. Steve wished he could be in Wakanda already. He loved his friends, but they didn’t understand each other. He didn’t know who Ben Stiller was or why he was going to show up at the Smithsonian at this hour, and they couldn’t possibly know what it felt like to hold a picture of yourself that felt like it was only taken a year ago but dated back  _ decades _ – and, oh, by the way, everyone who might recognize the man in the photograph was dead or brainwashed.

“What’s the story of that one, Grandpa?” Nat asked, not unkindly, her voice sounding the way rust felt, which somehow seemed appropriate. She peeked over his shoulder to get a better look.

“This was right after I rescued the men at the HYDRA weapons facility in Kreischberg,” Steve replied in a whisper. “Some journalists were there, and Bucky charmed one into giving him her camera for the afternoon, so he took the photo, actually. He loved to play with the journalists’ cameras.” He had to laugh nostalgically at that. “Right after this was taken, I passed out with a fever. I woke up and Pegs and Dr. Erskine offered me the chance to try the serum, and the rest is history.”

“You were so cute, bro,” Sam said, looking over Steve’s other shoulder at the faded sepia photograph of Steve, before he was Captain America or anything much at all, small and drowning in his Army helmet, scars from his suicide rescue mission still covering his face.

“You  _ smoked _ ?” Scott asked, sounding personally attacked that the patriotic icon of his childhood was actually a degenerate. As if the whole ruined Sokovia Accords, siding with his Wanted best friend, and becoming an international fugitive hadn’t done it, but the smoking had somehow crossed a line.

You know, Scott wasn’t so bad. Steve couldn’t help but smile. “And drank and started fights and cursed like a sailor.  _ And  _ I was sleeping with a Sergeant.” The last part he tacked on confidently. He was getting better at this.

“Hey, Steve, what’s this?” Sam asked, moving away from where they were all ogling the photograph to a piece of old yellowing lined paper, clearly preserved from the mid-twentieth century, in a case on the wall.

“It’s, oh, gee, Sam, that’s nothing–”

“You wrote a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt about enlisting?” he asked, a smile spreading on Sam’s face.

“It was a different time.”

“You’re adorable, you know that?”

Steve rubbed his forehead dramatically, feigning a headache, while the others laughed at him. The letter  _ was  _ sort of embarrassing, looking back.

“By the way, Captain? Happy birthday,” Sam said, smiling for real now. Steve nodded his thanks, and the other two chimed in with  _ happy birthdays  _ of their own.

He had thought that he might want to come here alone, that the artifacts of his childhood and tour in the European Theatre would be too personal, too hard to look at. But with Natasha, Sam, and yes, even Scott, at his side, he had to admit that he was sort of grateful for the company. If it had just been him, he would have been full of longing, probably regret, maybe even had a panic attack about the Valkyrie going down. With his team, he felt safe. They were full of quips that kept things light-hearted, that pulled him out of himself. 

Something Bucky had once told him popped into his head:  _ Life can be sweet sometimes, Stevie. Let it be sweet. _

“Whatchu smilin’ about, man? We just robbed the damn Smithsonian,” Sam said. “My mother is not going to like this.”

“You don’t have to tell your mom everything, Sam,” Natasha pointed out.

“Clearly you have not met Mama Wilson,” Sam laughed. Steve let them banter, zoning out, until even that started to wane. 

Gently, Natasha wrapped her skinny fingers around his wrist to coax him out of his thoughts. “You ready to go?” she asked, looking him directly in the eyes.

“Think so,” Steve confirmed, carefully enclosing the photograph in a ziploc baggie (he could feel Shuri’s disapproval of his low-tech shenanigans deep in his chest) and then placing it carefully between the pages of his pocket Constitution to keep it from crumpling in transit. When he looked up, all three of them were staring at him.  _ “What?” _

Sam closed his mouth first. Then Scott, then Natasha.

“You owe me five bucks,” Sam said to Scott on their way out. Scott reached for his wallet. Natasha turned the security cameras back on as they left, walking four abreast.

“I can’t believe you actually carry a pocket Constitution,” Scott muttered.

They were almost out the door, when Steve realized something. “Uh, wait, just – can you guys hang on for two minutes?” Without waiting for an answer, Steve turned on his heel, boot making a  _ squeak _ on the polished floors as he sprinted back upstairs to the Captain America exhibit. He flicked open his own wallet and threw a $100 bill on the remains of the protective display case he had shattered. Someone on janitorial staff would surely have to clean up his mess; they ought to be compensated. It was the right thing to do.

He took the stairs two at a time to rejoin his friends near the exit.

“You left a tip, didn’t you?” Sam accused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

***

Since he was already in the States, he took a couple days at Sam’s place in D.C. to recoup. Hot shower, Chinese takeout, that kind of thing. They’d been running around the African landscape (under Nakia’s orders and supervision, of course) on mission after mission, and the Smithsonian break-in had required some serious planning – it didn’t hurt to crack open a cold one.

He texted Shuri from a burner (had to at least attempt to stay untraceable by Stark and his robots) that he’d acquired the photograph. She’d sent back “:D”. So that was… something.

He knew he wouldn’t give it to her, though. This he wanted to give to Bucky in person. 

He’d seen Bucky intermittently at his hut on Lake Turkana, their meetings ranging from hours of nostalgic laughter to awkward, sullen silence. The worst days were when Bucky asked to be alone. The progress he’d made was astounding, really. Even though Bucky complained about it, his memory really was better than he thought, and every visit Steve could see more of his old personality slipping between the Winter Soldier’s cracks. He almost never used his eerie, robotic codenames anymore (like  _ Steve-Captain-America  _ or  _ Sam-with-the-wings _ ) and was picking up all kinds of hobbies, from knitting (“Yes, Buck, I remember how to knit, too. Sarah Rogers didn’t raise no chump”) to bird-raising (Steve didn’t understand it, but he liked to sketch Bucky’s birds whenever Bucky was napping – and mentally traumatized super soldiers needed a  _ lot  _ of sleep). Steve liked the littlest one; Bucky had named her Sugarcube. It was fitting, somehow. The world’s greatest, deadliest assassin, obsessing over whether Sugarcube-the-parakeet had enough stimulation from her toys.

And Bucky had wanted something to remind him of Steve, for peace of mind that even if he forgot everything else, he could remember the one person who wouldn’t dream of letting him forget everything. It was true; Steve had the inked numbers on his chest to prove it. Bucky could have all of his memories or wake up without a single one, and Steve would be there. Facts were facts.

Yeah, Steve wanted to give him the photograph in person.

He wanted to see the look on his face. And if he was being honest, he had to check, he just… he had to  _ know  _ that Bucky liked him as much now as he had liked him when he was small and sick and something to take care of.

Even super soldiers had their insecurities.

***

He’d planned to spend another week in D.C., but then the box – a shoebox – arrived on the doorstep addressed to him. No stamp. Hand-delivered.

Steve recognized Nat’s handwriting on the shoebox right away. During off periods, she usually disappeared – never sharing where. She didn’t have any family that he knew of. He thought she probably snuck off with Barton somewhere, but that was her business. But this time, she couldn’t be far. He wondered why she’d just dropped it off like this, why she hadn’t said hello. He brought the shoebox inside and sat down on Sam’s loveseat to read her letter, scotch-taped to the lid.

Steve was suddenly very, very glad Sam was at the V.A. hospital.

_ Steve, _

_ I went back to the Smithsonian last night. I thought they might be keeping stuff in the back in the Classified Archives. I found some e-mails exchanged between museum clerks a couple years ago when they found you in the Valkyrie. There had been an anonymous donation to the museum with explicit instructions not to publish the artifacts to the public. Knowing how to hack computers and being, well,  _ _ me _ _ , I looked. Sorry, I guess. I hadn’t thought much of them then – I didn’t know I’d be fighting alongside you in just a few months. And what was it my business, outing 100-year-old men posthumously? Anyway, I figured if we were already in the business of stealing from the Smithsonian, you’d basically given me the green light to take these. They were meant for your eyes, after all. _

_ He’s gonna be okay, Rogers. I really believe that.  _

_ Take care, _

_ Nat _

If that wasn’t ominous enough, Steve practically did a spit-take with his coffee when he lifted the lid and found the contents inside: three separate, handwritten letters addressed to his Brooklyn tenement, all dated 1943. Steve realized with a sick feeling that all of these must have arrived after Steve had already convinced Pegs to let him into the Army – he would’ve been at Basic in Jersey, but Bucky wouldn’t have known that. He’d been afraid to tell Bucky until the last minute for fear that he’d chew him out for it. Which, of course, he did. But still. 

The letters were laminated, so he couldn’t feel the scratches of the pencil, the indents from someone pressing hard into the stationery, but it didn’t matter. It was Bucky’s looping  _ Y _ ’s and  _ L _ ’s on the paper. These were James B. Barnes’ words, once. A long, long time ago. Someone had been kind enough to give a couple of old men their privacy, and for that, Steve was eternally grateful.

Steve was also grateful that he was already sitting down.  
  
He texted Sam:  _ I’m leaving for Wakanda tonight. _


	30. Them's Fightin' Words

_Private James B. Barnes  
_ June 13, 1943

 

Bucky missed the familiar weight of his film camera around his neck as he wandered the chaos of Brooklyn feeling important. He was in uniform, standing tall, and little kids and old ladies alike snagged his coat sleeve. But everywhere he looked, there was a photograph he wanted to snap, a moment he wanted to capture. A little girl in long stockings chasing after an alleycat. A couple of boys looking up at an Uncle Sam poster in wonder. If only he hadn’t sold the damn thing to get Steve his medicine. But that was more important, he chided himself. _Yalla._ Bucky had an inkling that this was going to be a long war.

“Thank you for your service, young man,” a veteran saluted.

He’d been learning about the rule of thirds in a photography course at City College when the radio had switched abruptly from Ella Fitzgerald’s saccharine voice to breaking news about Pearl Harbor. It was the lesson he remembered best, even if he hadn’t been able to finish the class. What good was a well-composed photograph in the midst of a worldwide slaughter, anyhow? But before he’d sold the camera for good, he’d gone out and used up the last of his film, scouring Brooklyn. He’d wanted to capture that moment, a little slice in time. What was it like to live in Brooklyn before the war, his grandkids would ask him. And he’d have money by then, so he’d flip open a real nice photo book and show ‘em. He wanted to document something.

An auntie had once told him he was so _Brooklyn_ that if you opened him up, his veins would be arranged like the subway map. It used to give him nightmares when he thought about it literally, images of doctors flaying him open and having to move everything back around dancing behind his eyelids. Of course, he knew better now. Instead of scaring him, it gave him a sense of pride.

So he’d snapped a picture of a cat decaying in the street. A Polish woman pushing a baby carriage that probably cost a fortune. The scowl of a grumpy Italian at the newsstand on Fulton. Although the pictures might not ever be developed, he couldn’t stop taking them. It was compulsive. A last-ditch effort to immortalize himself, maybe.

But now he had no camera, and was feeling more mortal than he ever had. Weren’t young men supposed to feel invincible? Then why did he feel like a single paper cut could do him in right now?

When a photographer snaps a picture, the phrase is that she shoots something. She _shot_ that street. She _shot_ that wedding. She _shot_ that family. Bucky had always had a keen eye – had always been good at shooting people. It wasn’t too surprising, then, that when he’d traded his camera for a rifle, his lens for a scope, his model for a target, that he was a perfect shot. Best in his unit. They’d kept him at Basic for longer, upgrading him to marksman.

Bucky swallowed just thinking about it. Tripping the shutter. Fiddling with the trigger. One in the same.

_“A good photo focuses on the eyes,” his professor had said._

_“Shoot ‘em right between the eyes,” his drill sergeant had yelled._

_“Don’t fire ‘til you see whites of their eyes,” Prescott said in the Battle of Bunker Hill, according to Steve’s history books, which he hoarded since his dad was a war hero and it was all Steve wanted to be._

_“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Gandhi._

Bucky closed his entirely, breathed in the smells of Brooklyn (did sidewalks have a smell?), walked through the flock of pigeons that parted for him like the Red Sea, and started making his way toward the ol’ apartment.

As he was making his merry way, an unrecognizable male voice squawked from an alleyway, “That’s a crock of shit!”

_Please no._

“It’s the damn truth and you’re blind if you can’t see the injust–”

A beat. The sound of metal garbage cans falling over. A yelp. A _very familiar sounding_ yelp.

_Please please don’t be my idiot._

Bucky took two steps back and turned about-face to walk along the east wall of Ed’s barber shop, inching quietly down the alley, pressed up against the brick in the hopes of going unnoticed.

Just as Bucky stealthily reached the back corner of the shop wall where it opened to a back lot, Steve’s body was launched past him, a tumble of elbows and knees and a busted eye, and Bucky sighed as he looked at Steve’s crumpled posture. But Bucky was still hidden from the attacker, so he raised a silent finger to his lips – _shh_. Steve played along, eyes darting away from Bucky and back to whoever was around the corner. Steve’s aggressor began moving predictably after his injured prey. Flattening himself against the wall, Bucky watched the prick – easily three times Steve’s size – ‘round the corner, a fucking baseball bat over his shoulder and a snarl on his face that made Bucky’s stomach flip.

The asshole didn’t see Bucky on his left as he entered the alley where Steve had landed, tunnel vision only for Rogers. Bucky didn’t want to think about how far this particular prick might be willing to go, and he didn’t let him get very far. It happened fast. As the asshole lifted the bat over his head and Steve covered his face in his hands, scrambling for a garbage can lid to shield himself, Bucky reached out with a strong arm – finally, Basic Training was paying off – and plucked the raised bat right out of the moron’s greasy hands.

“Mind if I borrow this?” Bucky asked smoothly, enjoying the look on the guy’s face as he swung the bat around in circles, gloating. The uniform had a satisfying effect – the guy’s jaw fell open; he stuttered but no words came. “That’s what I thought. Scram or I take this to your kneecaps.”

“ _Bucky!_ ” Steve hissed, like he was suddenly appalled at the idea of violence.

“Right, _Gandhi,_ ” Bucky rolled his eyes, pleased to watch the jerk turn on his heel and run off. When he was gone, he leaned down, holding out a hand to Steve to pull him up from the gravel. Steve took it begrudgingly, a furrow between his brows that Bucky wanted to smooth with his thumb. Badly. But he was mildly distracted by the groan of pain that Steve couldn’t quite suppress as he stood. “Anything broken?”

Steve sucked in a deep breath – a practice Bucky had come to recognize as Steve testing his ribs – and shook his head, grinning. Bucky wanted to bang his head on the brick wall. _Not breaking a bone isn’t the same thing as winning, Steve_ , he wanted to say. But there wasn’t time to argue – wasn’t much time left at all, really – so he slung an arm around Steve’s bony shoulders and led him out of the alley instead, the bat resting against his own collar bone like a rifle.

“You gonna ask what that was all about?” Steve asked, clearly awaiting Bucky’s usual lecture about _not picking fights with giants, David._

“Do I want to know?”

“Levin was sayin’ that all Japs oughtta be sent to away, to camps or something. It ain’t right, Buck. I mean, think about it. The Nakamuras are good people. Remember when they fixed the radio for us? No charge?”

“I do,” Bucky said.

“They’ve been here longer than either of our parents!” Steve pointed out righteously.

“They have.”

Steve _humph_ ed beside him. It was like the guy was _hoping_ someone would disagree with him so he could prove just how much he believed what he was saying.

When they got back to the apartment, Steve went straight to their bedroom, pulling out a shoebox from under the bed and counting their money.

“What’re you doing, punk?”

“Nothin’.”

“Really? Nothin’?”  
  
“I got errands to run tomorrow. Just want to make sure there’s enough here.”

“Sure,” Bucky said, putting potatoes on to boil.

After dinner, as was their old routine before Bucky’d gone to Wisconsin, they crawled out the window and onto the fire escape, hiding amongst the fluttering sheets where the air was cooler. Bucky held up old film to the light, looking at his negatives and sharing stories, most of them true, from the images. Meanwhile, Steve was scribbling away at a project he wouldn’t let Bucky see, his tongue poking out with concentration and the heel of his right hand getting covered in pencil.

It all felt extraordinarily ordinary, and much as Bucky tried to work up some sense of urgency, none came. Even though he figured that in just a few short days, nothing would really ever be the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also! Bucky's photography is based on the recovered photography of Vivian Maier, one of my personal favorite NYC photographers from the 20th century (specific, I know). Check out her stuff at http://www.vivianmaier.com !


	31. The Beginning

_ Steve  
_ July 8, 2017

 

Steve shouldn’t be nervous. He  _ wasn’t _ nervous. Why would he be nervous?

(He was nervous).

He’d had a couple years to get used to this body,  _ his _ body – his physique, his health. It was funny – he was so afraid that it would disappear, that one day he would just wake up small and coughing again. His body was a blessing, of course, he was extremely grateful – it was the only reason he was standing here now on a Wakandan plain shaky with something akin to first-date butterflies. But he also felt foreign in this body, especially around Bucky, the only person who’d wanted him to stay small way back when. The only person who’d loved each exposed notch in his spine, the chip on his shoulder, the whole small and fierce and hating the world thing he had going on. But that was old Bucky. The Sergeant, the Brooklynite. What did  _ this  _ Bucky think? Why had he so badly wanted the photograph of a Steve Rogers who was small and frail, weak and bullied, sick and reckless? That Steve was dead.

Okay, he was still reckless.  _ Not the point. _

This was stupid. He shouldn’t be nervous. They’d always found a way to love every version of each other. Why would this be any different?

He shook out his shoulders, filled his lungs with fresh Wakandan air, and journeyed onward through the seemingly endless field of grass that Okoye had pointed him down, because  _ he was being stupid.  _ He marched toward the flickering light in the distance – a vibranium lamp designed to mimic a 1930s kerosene lamp for Bucky’s comfort. The stars reflected in the still waters of the lake, and they were the same stars they used to watch in ‘37, and that gave Steve some confidence. It was a quiet night – quiet in the peaceful way, with bullfrogs and bugs buzzing as twilight settled around him like a blanket. Quiet enough for him to hear the rustle of his white cloth pants. He stuffed his hands into his hoodie and trudged on, suddenly very ready to close the distance between him and Bucky. It was only the fifth or sixth time he’d seen him since he woke up from cryo, and he was bringing a gift, and if Bucky was going to prefer him puny then he might as well get this over with.

“Come in,” Bucky called before Steve even announced himself. Superhuman hearing had its disadvantages. Where was his chance to puff up his chest and practice his lines like they did in the pictures?

Steve pulled aside the flap of Bucky’s hut and instinctively ducked to avoid the low ceiling. It was sort of like sneaking into Bucky’s tent back in World War II, except there was no one around to catch them, let alone hear them, and the tent was white instead of green, which made a difference. White was the color of peace; green, the color of hiding.

Bucky was standing awkwardly in the dead center of the tent. Not that there was exactly a foyer for him to welcome guests into, but still. His hair was drawn up into another bun, though the bottom part of his head was buzzed short with traditional Wakandan patterns shaved into it.  _ An undercut _ , Bucky informed him later. Shuri’s work, no doubt.

“Uh, here,” Steve said, shoving the stolen photograph of himself into Bucky’s hand, licking his lips. “I got you something.”

Bucky gripped it in his right (and only) hand, and Steve used the opportunity to look him over, make sure he looked healthy, like he was eating, that sort of thing. Bucky let him inspect him without complaint. It was a small courtesy, which they exchanged like currency these days.

Feeling bolder, safe as soon as Bucky was actually in his presence, Steve touched his hair, neat and combed and soft. Something he knew Bucky was proud of. As he tucked a strand behind Bucky’s ear, Bucky leaned in to his touch. Maybe consciously, maybe muscle memory. Touch was something they were working on, now. But Bucky didn’t seem to be paying attention. His eyes flicked from the stolen photograph up to Steve. 

“This is you,” Bucky said, somewhere between a statement and a question, as he looked down at the photo. Steve nodded, giving Bucky his space, his time. He stole another glance at the worn photograph of himself, the deep gash under his eye, the stress on his face. Remembered the feeling of drowning even in the smallest Army helmet, the labor of his lungs that each felt like a wet sock balled up in his chest that he was somehow supposed to  _ breathe  _ out of. The beard he grew out to prove something, when he had something to prove, which matched the one he wore now (though Steve was starting to suspect that that had more to do with Shuri’s preferences than Bucky’s). Bucky’s fascination with the photo was starting to irk him, though. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Maybe his suspicions were right – Bucky liked the old Steve better. Bucky would always prefer him small, before he became a willing lab experiment, an act against nature, against God.

Then Bucky leaned on Steve’s shoulder, putting the photo down gently on his nightstand and letting his right hand fall on on Steve’s wrist.

“This is you,” Bucky said again, and Steve closed his eyes.

“Yeah, Buck.”

“You’re the same punk ass kid.” 

Steve snorted. He hoped it conveyed  _ thank you. _ He’d have to poke Shuri later for teaching Bucky  _ punk ass kid. _

“Thanks for the picture.”

“No, thank  _ you _ . You took it, you know that?”

“No way.”

Steve bent down to pick up the photograph and flipped it over, afraid it would disintegrate in his too-strong hands, and pointed at the looping writing and date on the back; the same handwriting that had put a lump in his throat when he’d opened the chaos of Bucky’s Moleskine notebook; the same handwriting in those heartbreaking letters Nat had uncovered for him.

“I was pretty good, huh?” Bucky asked, inspecting the photo with renewed interest. He flipped it back over to look at the picture. “You were so  _ small _ . And cute.”

Steve nodded and ducked his head so Bucky wouldn’t see the predictable red of his face, ready to change the subject, taking up too much space in the tiny hut. He was ready to – to sit down, or go for a hike, or skip rocks, something with his  _ hands. _

“I wasn’t a fan of this whole ‘Captain America’ thing, was I?” Bucky said, laughing a little as something – a memory, maybe, or just a feeling – came back to him. 

Steve shook his head vigorously, a nervous laugh bubbling up out of nowhere. _Don’t you remember yelling yourself hoarse over it? Don’t you remember making love to me for the first time while I was still small?_ _The night before they whisked me off to Verona?_ “Not so much, pal,” Steve managed instead. Swallowed, then tried for more. “But it made me pretty indestructible, at least,” he added with a shrug. And hey – it was true. He wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for Erskine’s serum.

Bucky playfully glared at him, and it was so  _ Bucky _ , protesting with only his eyes Steve’s self-proclaimed invincibility, the way he’d looked at Steve every time he’d had to peel Steve’s bloody ass off the Brooklyn sidewalk. Without thinking, Steve retorted by lightly punching his arm and Bucky–

–went still, his eyes gone wide and wild. Steve looked at him, horrified, his knuckles still pressed to Bucky’s sun-kissed tan skin while an apology started bubbling to his lips but–

“Gotcha,” Bucky breathed, his frozen stare melting quickly into an easy smile until he was sticking his tongue out at Steve, whose heart throbbed painfully in his chest. He flicked Bucky’s shoulder.

“You asshole.”

“ _ Your  _ asshole.”

He couldn’t help it – he grabbed Bucky’s right hand and kissed it. He led him by the hand to the nest of pillows and blankets that Bucky curled up in at night, and they sat beside each other, getting comfortable. Relaxed. They weren’t overly touchy, but Steve liked that he and Bucky always seemed to have a hand on the other, tracing invisible lines, tapping old melodies, rubbing comforting circles.           

“You doing okay, though? How’s the rehab and all?” Steve wanted to know. Being direct was the best way to talk to Bucky as he healed. Mind games, political correctness – it was confusing to him. Cultural and nuanced in a way he couldn’t make sense of yet. Cryo had, unfortunately, put him a few steps back in the healing process. Better in the long-run, Shuri had assured him. But not so much in the short-term.

“Steve, it’s… it’s everything. I love it. I go birding with Shuri, I have to recognize the birds and name the species, which is hard, but it’s training my brain to remember things. And now that I have my taste back I have a whole new appreciation for spices, I mean, Steve, we  _ never  _ used spices back home – Shuri says it’s a white people thing, but I feel like my ma woulda taken offense to that. Her cabbage rolls, ho boy, they were something else, weren’t they?”

Steve nodded, hoping to God Bucky would just keep talking. It was something magic, to watch Bucky gush excitedly like this.

“And, well they’re working on a new arm,” Bucky said more hesitantly. “I’m not sure I want it. I’m not really sure my brain is ready for me to be at full force again. Trigger reduction’s been the slowest part, I mean, how do you un-brainwash a guy when you only know one of his series of trigger words? So I’m not sure I’m really ready for a new arm, especially an armored one. I kind of think retirement suits me,” he laughed.

“And the headaches?” Steve probed.

Bucky tapped his temple with two fingers. “Hurt,” he admitted, face going a little sour as he said it. “But not so bad anymore. I’m really…  well, I’m really getting better, I think. I remember things,” he said, eyes lighting up. It didn’t escape Steve’s notice that Bucky sat a little straighter, excited like a child asked what he learned in school. Bucky trusted his mind the least of everyone. Him saying he was getting better was a damn good sign.

“Tell me.”

“What do you want to know?” Bucky said with a cheeky grin.

“Before the war. Anything.”

“Alrighty,  _ Cap _ ,” Bucky began. He scratched his chin, thinking of something to share with the class. “I dunno. I remember we stole an Atlas from Ms. Schroeder in 4th grade, and we brought it up to your place and spread it on the kitchen table – it had all those little fold out pages, you know? And we put your Ma’s sewing pins on all the places we wanted to go.”

Steve remembered. “She was so mad about the holes we put in the wood.”

“Made us each hand-write an apology telling Ms. Schroeder that we stole.”

“You ever hand yours in?” Steve asked, laughing now, his eyes full of 1931.

“Nope. You?”   


“‘Course I did.”

“Fuckin’ Captain America.”

They laughed until they reached a peaceable silence. “You remember if we ever pinned Wakanda?” Steve finally asked as the soft chorus of the crickets and bullfrogs and other, foreign wildlife grew louder, filling the gaps.

“I’m gonna say we did,” Bucky said, extending his hand out for Steve to take. And he did, eagerly, drawing closer to the warm heat radiating off Bucky. “I made a pact, you know?”

“A pact?” Steve asked, wondering what the hell Shuri had done this time.

“Oh, calm down. You always been this dramatic, Rogers? Wait, don’t answer that.” Bucky closed his eyes tight and feigned counting on his fingers. “Yep, always been this dramatic. No, I made a pact with G-d, the day I shipped out. I told Him that it’d be alright if I didn’t make it so long as you did.”

“Buck…” Steve said, sad but trying to conceal it. Shuri told him it was best to keep things light during these visits, but it wasn’t that easy. Bucky wanted to work through his thoughts, and shadows had always loomed over their lives.

Bucky squeezed his hand, comforting Steve even when it ought to be the other way around. Some things never change. “Point is,” he continued, giving Steve his best shut-up-and-let-me-finish eyes. Surprising even himself, Steve closed his mouth. “I stopped believing in God when they broke me. Because I thought you were dead and I was trapped alive, pleading for death. Ironic, I guess. But now… well, the big guy upstairs made good on it in the end.”

Steve was close to him now, his left hand in Bucky’s right, but he extracted it carefully and moved slowly behind him, arms wrapping around Bucky’s waist and clasping his hands at his middle. He slotted his chin into Bucky’s shoulder and inhaled without shame. There were no words. Subconsciously, maybe, he started to sway them to no music. In the quiet, Bucky started reciting Hebrew. Steve didn’t know what it meant, but he recognized the syllables strung together like that. He’d spent enough time in the Barnes household to know the Shabbat prayer when he heard it.

_ “Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat. Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, boreh p’ri hagafen.” _

“I like it when you speak in Hebrew”

“Yeah?”   


“Yeah. I know you’re multilingual now and all, but you could always speak Hebrew when we were growing up. It’s just nice to hear.”

“You know folks like us can get married now? In Wakanda, but even in the States?” Bucky asked. He had a tendency to jump between trains of thought, but really, it wasn’t all that unlike sixteen-year-old James who would’ve probably been diagnosed with ADHD in this day and age. “Shuri told me.”

“Mmm,” Steve hummed into his shoulder. Happy. Wondering what Bucky would say next and not wanting to pull him from this  _ particular  _ train of thought.

“Maybe we were always meant for the future, Stevie.”

Figuring it was safe to do, Steve leaned up to press his lips to the scruff on Bucky’s cheek from behind. “Maybe so,” Steve said, feeling like he could stay awhile in this century after all. “Or maybe you were always meant to be a goat-herder on a  _ kibbutz _ .” 

Bucky gave him a half-hearted  _ thwap  _ in the general direction of Steve’s face, fingertips lingering on the scruff of Steve’s beard long after the moment passed. He hugged Bucky like that for a long time. Without trying, their breathing synchronized, and Steve’s eyes grew heavy. It was easy, here. Like he could finally sleep – maybe even through the night. Of course, Shuri wouldn’t let him – Bucky was foggiest in the morning; they didn’t want him to panic with Steve surprising him when he woke up. But Steve was counting down the days until they could wake up beside each other. Do mundane things like play footsies while they read the newspaper, trading sections of interest. Squeeze together under a throw blanket that could never cover both of their feet at the same time. Make jokes about how they should open a throw blanket business for super soldiers. Yell at each other for drinking milk out of the carton or forgetting to flush. Wherever they ended up, they’d run together – long runs, working their muscles but taking their time until one of them would say, “Race ya,” and they’d sprint, drawing attention that they would ignore, Steve letting Bucky win exactly half the time. Well, maybe 49% of the time.  _ There go the super soldiers _ , the locals would say as they ran their errands and lived their lives.  _ Retirement suits them _ , they might add.

“What’re you smiling about?” Bucky asked. Steve was still wrapped around him from behind. He tried not to think too hard about the koala thing he had going on. If Sam got wind of this…

“How’d you know I was smilin’?”

“I can feel it,” Bucky said.

“I’m just happy you’re having a good day.”

“Me, too,” he replied, resting his remaining hand on Steve’s hands over his own navel.

“About damn time.”


	32. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give Bucky Barnes an Instax 2k18

_ Shuri _

 

“This was a stupid idea,” Barnes complained, fixing his hair in the mirror for the zillionth time. 

“If you say that  _ one more time _ …” Shuri threatened.

“...you’ll do what, exactly?” Barnes responded, calling her bluff. 

Admittedly, her folding her arms and saying, “You don’t even  _ want  _ to know,” had probably warranted the response that followed:

“This was a stupid idea.”

She glared at his reflection in the mirror. He bared his teeth at her and yeah, okay, he would always win the murderous stare contests. Didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

“You’re going to be glad you did it, and your Captain is going to light up like the morning sun when you give it to him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he conceded with a careless wave of his hand, full of attitude that she  _ didn’t appreciate thank you very much.  _ Then he took his hair out of the braid that he’d  _ just  _ made. Again. 

“Oh my  _ God _ do you want me to do it?” she sighed, realizing it was the inevitable end to this seemingly endless cycle of hair-up-hair-down. 

He gave her his best puppy-dog eyes and a tiny smile. Why she was so soft on this cheeky pain-in-the-ass she would never understand. Huffing her frustration to let him know she would do it  _ but she wasn’t happy about it _ , she pressed down on his shoulders so he would sit. He wilted under her palms easily. She suspected he’d been waiting for her to ask. Ugh. Americans and their damn politeness. 

“Give me,” she ordered. He passed her the hairbrush she’d gestured for. She grabbed it, feigning reluctance and annoyance (very well, she might add) and started working through his hair. Gently, though. It was mostly untangled already, but she liked to do it. She never had a little sister. He closed his eyes.

She decided to do something more elaborate, beautiful braids in the front weaving like serpents into a bun on the back of his neck, the way her mother did for her at her coming of age ceremony. He didn’t open his eyes until she finished. When she finally pulled her fingers from his hair, a little line appeared between his eyebrows, already nostalgic for human contact. Poor thing.

“Okay, what do you think?” she asked, pulling him out of himself.

“You’re the best,” he said genuinely, all proud and peacocking, not taking his eyes off his reflection as he moved back and forth to inspect her handiwork. He checked himself out in the mirror often. When she’d asked Captain Rogers about it, he’d laughed reassuringly.  _ That’s James Barnes for ya _ , he’d said.

“I’m glad you like it because I wouldn’t have re-done it even if you didn’t,” she sing-songed. Then she asked him to pose – this was Instagram story worthy.

Barnes might’ve been a hundred years old, but they joked like he was her age. And he’d never really gotten to be a real teenager, all things considered, so maybe it was alright.

“Okay, where are we doing this, then?” she asked, picking up the polaroid camera off the table. It was a white Instax she’d bought on Amazon. Could she have invented a better one? Probably. But as the Americans say: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Barnes taught her lots of sayings. Perhaps he was an old man after all. He sort of spliced different eras together, too; he was an enigma. He’s say groovy in the same breath as dope or swell. She’d flicked his ear when he told her a penny saved was a penny earned.

Secretly? It had reminded her of her father.

“By the lake?” he suggested like a question. Always self-doubting, this boy.

“That’s a long ass walk,” she argued. The lake was  _ far.  _ Couldn’t they take this picture, against, say, the wall?

“This is like my twenty-first century bar mitzvah. You can do it.” Dammit. How was he so good at playing the guilt card? And this wasn’t even the big guns. When he  _ really  _ wanted something, he’d kick at the floor and casually mention his seventy years of unbearable torture until she caved bitterly. It was always said like a joke, though. She figured he had to get it out of his system, humor as a coping mechanism and all that. It wasn’t like he could make POW jokes to Mr. Fifty-texts-a-day.

They walked to the lake together, the morning still cool and bright. Even as they chatted, she could see the muscles of his back twitch, the way his eyes scanned the grassland and his head jerked at any sound. But he’d stopped dropping to the Earth with his hands cupped over the back of his head like a 1940s bomb drill, so. Progress takes many forms.

When their feet hit sand, they took off their shoes.

“Well, you’re the photographer. Where do you want to stand?” she asked.

He looked around, mind working. And then he snapped into a new person she’d never seen before. 

“Well, the best lighting is going to be indirect sunlight…” 

“You remember so well,” she said, no hint of joking in her voice now. It was impressive. And fun. Why hadn’t they been doing photo shoots all along? She was still gaming to get that little blue check mark next to her name on her Instagram account.

“It’s like riding a bicycle,” he shrugged.

He stood where he wanted and directed her from there.  _ Don’t cut off any of my limbs in the shot; I haven’t got any to spare. And be sure not to have a tree coming out of the top of my head. The focus should be on the eyes. _

“I regret ever telling you your eyes were pretty.”

In perfect form, he stuck out his tongue at her.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, looking at her with a hard stare like a GQ model or something, arm straight at his side. He looked stiff and awkward if she was being honest.

“You look like you just ate a spoonful of mayonnaise right before a pigeon shat on you.”

He gave her a Barnes™ eye roll, complete with a head title and a face.

“Come  _ on _ . This is Steve we’re talking about. At least pretend this isn’t your mugshot, jeez.” 

He fumbled a little, genuinely not sure what to do with himself. The curse of always being the guy  _ behind  _ the camera.

For the love of Bast. Did she have to do  _ everything  _ herself?

“Okay, put your hand in your pocket.”

“This thing has  _ pockets?!”  _ God help this man.

“We’re not  _ savages _ ,” she said, shaking her head as he elatedly sunk his right hand into the hidden pocket in the red fabric. He looked a little too jazzed about it. He left a little bend in his elbow. Good. It made him look relaxed. “Now fake laugh for me.”

“What?” he sputtered, ruining everything all over again. 

“Fake. Laugh,” she repeated, annunciating each syllable. She was tiring quickly. And she thought her girlfriends organizing photoshoots for their lattes was bad. “Trust me.”

“What’s funny about being a mindless slave of HYDRA?” he said, eyebrows raised. Then she laughed, and he laughed, and as he bent forward, mouth open with laughter, looking out in the distance with light and life in his eyes, hand still in the pocket of his red linen pants, barefoot and carefree, she snapped the shutter.

“Hey!” he said, laugh still curled around his voice. “That’s cheating.”

“It’s  _ smart.  _ And candid,” she disagreed as the camera spit out a black photograph. “Here.” She handed it over.

“Shake it, shake shake shake, shake it like a polaroid piiicture,” he sang, shaking his butt and the photo in the shade.

She had to be more careful about what she put on his mixes.

“Facepalm,” she lamented, smiling despite herself. It was like going to the mall with your mom. Appalling at best. She wondered if anyone would find her body if she  _ died of embarrassment  _ out here.

“What’s that?” She flicked him. He grinned, eyeing the polaroid as his face came to life from the darkness.

“It’s when a white boy says something infantile.”

He nodded. Well, at least they agreed on something.

When the picture was done developing, they looked at it together, heads knocking a little.

“You like it?” she double-checked. They had a full roll of film after all.

He nodded, emotions caught in his throat. Aw. He breathed in deep through his nose before answering. “It’s the first photo of me – that I can hold, I guess – since the war. You know, the fairytales say that you can’t take a picture of a vampire. And I was a ghost story. Vampire-adjacent, you know? I’m just, uh, glad I showed up. It sounds stupid, I know, but uh, it makes me feel real. So, thanks.”

She put a hand on his shoulder.

“You can sign it if you like. Like the other one.” She knew he would understand that he meant Steve’s matching one – the photograph from the war. He nodded and plucked the pen she offered him out of her hands. With only one arm, Barnes needed a little assistance, so she held the photo as he wrote in his loopy handwriting, tongue poking out just a little from between his lips.

_ Not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. Dec. 2017. JBB.   
_   
Steve was going to fucking love this. She couldn’t help herself from feeling a little emotional. And she hadn’t even cried at  __ Titanic.


End file.
